Vol. 11, Issue 2 (2022)

Author(s):
Subramani Natarajan, Dananjeyan Balachandar, Senthil Natesan, Velazhahan Rethinasamy and Paranidharan Vaikuntavasan

Abstract:
Herbal products are frequently reported with the contamination of mycotoxins. In this present study, we assessed the occurrence of fungal contaminates associated with senna leaves (n=128) which collected from the different time period such as preharvest, drying, processing and storage. The most prevalent fungal genera were isolated as Aspergillus, Penicillium, Rhizopus, Cladosporium, Mucor, Fusarium and Alternaria. The maximum fungal count was recorded by Aspergillus (11.68 ×10⁴ CFU/g) followed by Rhizopus (4.65×10⁴ CFU/g). The 18s rDNA analysis was employed to confirm representative A. flavus isolates obtained from the senna leaves. The aflatoxin producing ability of A. flavus strains were determined by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with florescence detector. The higher amount of aflatoxin production was showed by strain ASL1 (4824.23 µg/g) followed by ASL7 (3081.67 µg/g). Moreover, the aflatoxin production was significantly varied with in the strains tested in this study (P< 0.05). The presence of fungal contaminants and the aflatoxigenic fungi indicated the health risk associated with substrates. Hence, the regular monitoring of herbal drugs is essential to prevent the chronic exposure of aflatoxin contamination.