Molecular and phylogenetic characterization of fungi and their mycotoxins in locally processed dried beef meats from Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study report on the status of mycological safety of sun-dried meat and its nutritional content as well as their correlation with mycotoxin production from toxigenic fungi. The dried meat is both economically and nutritionally essential to the consumers and sellers of the beef dried meat across southern part of Nigeria. However, safety of processed meat has remained a major concern largely due to its processing method, mode of packaging, transportation, storage and mode of selling in open air. To assess the fungi biodiversity of the dried meat consumed in Ekiti State, dried meat samples were collected from selected locations in the 10 local governments out of 16 local governments (North, South, East, West and Central) were sampled. The mycological analysis was done to establish the occurrences of fungi and the mycotoxins level in the samples. Fungi isolation was done through serial dilution of the dried meat samples, and subsequent purification of the isolates was done using a different media. The isolates from the dried beef samples were morphologically and molecularly identified, with the results obtained show a different pattern of fungi contamination. The mycobiota of the dried meat revealed that Aspergillus was the most prevalent fungi isolated with (43%), then Rhizopus (42%), Penicillium (3%), Cladosporium (3%), Fusarium (2%) and remaining genera were (7%). .....