Occurrence of aspergillus flavus on cereals in Hungary

Abstract

Climate change affects the occurrence of fungi and their mycotoxins in our foods and feeds. A shift has
recently been observed in the occurrence of aflatoxin producers in Europe, with consequent aflatoxin
contamination in agricultural commodities in several European countries not facing with this problem before
including Northern Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Ukraine. Although aflatoxin contamination
of agricultural products is not treated as a serious threat to Hungarian agriculture due to climatic conditions,
these observations led us to examine the mycobiota and mycotoxin content of different cereals including
maize, wheat and barley collected from different locations in Hungary. The surface-sterilized cereal seeds
were placed on selective media, and the isolated fungal strains were identified using morphological and
sequence-based methods. Several Aspergillus flavus isolates were identified, which are potential aflatoxin
producers. This species was identified on cereal seeds in different regions of Hungary. Maize, wheat and
barley seeds were contaminated with infection rates of 0.83%, 3.17% and 2%, respectively. Further studies
are in progress to examine the aflatoxin producing abilities and genetic variability of the isolates, and
mycotoxin content of the cereal samples.