Introduction and Safety Evaluation of Citrinin in Foods

Citrinin is a kind of mycotoxin, which is produced during Monascus fermentation to produce Monascus Pigments. Studies have shown that citrinin has certain nephrotoxicity and hepatotoxicity, which can cause tumor, induce mutation and so on. The pretreatment of samples was carried out by ultrasonic assisted extraction centrifugal separation and nitrogen blowing concentration, and HPLC with fluorescence detection was used to detect 4 types samples of food raw materials including Monascus food additives (a total of 57 samples). The results showed that citrinin was 23 positive and the positive rate was 40.4% (Below the detection limit is negative, opposite positive). The pollution level reached 0.096~0.24 mg/kg and the average pollution level is 0.16 mg/kg. The problem of citrinin should be paid enough attention to in the Monascus production industry, and it may be possible to solve the problem of citrinin in Monascus by biological, physical or chemical methods.