Occurrence of aflatoxins in some medicinal plants stored under different conditions

Medicinal plants are widely used as home remedies and raw materials for the pharmaceutical industries. During harvesting, handling, storage and distribution, medicinal plants are subjected to contamination by various fungi, which may be responsible for spoilage and production of mycotoxins. The increasing consumption of medicinal plants has made their use a public health problem due to the lack of effective surveillance of the use, efficacy, toxicity and quality of these natural products. The aim of this study was to determine the content of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), aflatoxin B2 (AFB2), aflatoxin G1 (AFG1), aflatoxin G2 (AFG2) and the sum of total aflatoxins (AFs) in medical plants which were stored in storehouses with controlled macro-environment such as humidity, temperature; modified macro-environment of 50% CO2, 30% O2 and 20% N2 and in storehouses with air at 25 0C and relative humidity between 70% and 80%. The results of this study revealed that the content of AFs was the lowest in medical plants which were stored in modified macro-environment. This implies the necessity of continuous monitoring of the macro-environmental condition during the storage. Keywords – aflatoxins, macro-environment, medical plant