[Identification of Aflatoxin secreting fungi in common Syrian foods, and their estimation by immunological and fluorometric methods]

30 samples from different kind of foods were collected: Dairy Products( white cheese ,kashkawan chees , shenklish , Butter village); Nuts( Nuts peanuts , peanuts) Grains: (Wheat , rice)and Spices( red pepper). Three samples of each material were analayzed.. Isolated fungi in these samples were diagnosed as follows: Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus parasiticus in samples of nuts, while Aspergillus crustosum, Aspergillus candidus, Penicillium commune, Penicillium crustosum were found in dairy products. Its revealed that Fusarium avenaceum were found in wheat samples , but Xeromyces bisporus wree found in most red pepper sample. The rice samples contained Aspergillus ochraseus, Penicillium crustosum and Cladosporium marocarpum. The percentage of fungi frequency was 80%- 70%- 60%- 60%- 40%- 30%- 20%- 20%- 10% for Penicillium- Aspergillus- Mucor- Fusarium- Cladosporium- Moniliella- Xeromyces- Paesilamyces- Bysochlomyces consequently. The estimation amount of total aflatoxin by Fluorometer methods showed the different content of aflatoxin in all samples. It was low in some samples and high in others, which reached in nut samples (76 ppb), and in some shenklish samples were 20 ppb and were 12.3 in some Kashkawan samples. This is due to the presence of fungi producing aflatoxin, as well as the focus was high in some samples of red pepper, reaching 18 ppb while it was down in the butter and the white chees (as it did not exceed the quantity of 1.5 ppb), and the grain characterized (wheat - rice) were down in the content of aflatoxins and thus the results indicated that some samples is identical to the Syrian standard specifications No. 2680 in 2008. the measured concentrations of aflatoxins in foodstuffs by immunological methods using the ELISA revealed that concentrations were comparable to those by fluorometric methods ( Fluorometer). Thus the study showed no significant differences between the methods of the studied samples except for six samples out of 30 samples and this showed that two methods were closed to each other but the ELISA was easy to use for free movement, handling in the labs with small volumes of samples and very sensitive for large number of samples with a speed of analyzing.