Identification of Aspergillus Flavus and Detection of Its Aflatoxin Genes Isolated From Peanut and Peanut Processed Products

Aspergillus flavus is one of the main fungi that are able to produce aflatoxin.The presence of the fungi and its aflatoxin are become serious problem on food safety. This research was aimed to isolate and identify A. flavus from peanut and its processed products collected from some traditional markets in Bogor, Depok and Jakarta, and detection of their aflatoxin genes. Fungal isolation was using AFPA media. Fungal identification was carried out by combining morphological and molecular analysis used species specific primers FVAVIQ1/FLAQ2 and AFLA-F/AFLA-R, while detection of aflatoxin genes employed four specific primers of apa-2 (aflR), nor-1 (aflD), ver-1 (aflM) and omt-1 (aflP). From 36 samples, the A. flavus group was only found in peanut kernels samples with viable count of specific colonies in the range of 0.01-5.52 x 10-4 cfu/g. The total 18 isolates were identified as A. flavus based on species specific primers FVAVIQ1/FLAQ2 and AFLA-F/AFLA-R by producing amplicons about 100 and 413 bp respectively. Based on aflatoxin gene analysis showed that all 18 isolates successfully amplified by both apa-2 and nor-1, 83.3 % by omt-1 and 72.2 % by ver-1 genes which taking part in aflatoxin production. The amplicons size of apa-2, nor-1, ver-1 and omt-1 primer pairs were about 1032, 400, 895 and 1024 bp respectively