నైరూప్య

A Validation Study of Aflatoxin in Real Samples of Peanuts and Dry Fruits in Urban City by HPTLC

Mukund Nagarnaik, Arun Sarjoshi, Neeta Phatak, Mangesh Wandhare, Meenal Dhabale and Girish Pandya

Peanut is one of the popular oil seeds available in India. Peanuts and peanut products are considered as food items among all age groups of population, especially in urban areas. People prefer to buy peanut based food items as snacks. Peanut is shown to be a good substrate for the growth of Aspergiillus sp. and for the production of aflatoxins. Aflatoxins are potent teratogenic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic mycotoxin proven to be contained in food and feed. Present work was carried out as a preliminary study to determine the level of aflatoxin contamination in commercially available roasted and fried peanuts, almonds, cashewnuts and pistacheos collected from commercial markets in Nagpur. The technique used for analysis was HPTLC. Out of 30 samples of peanuts and dry fruits analysed by HPTLC, 24 samples were positive for aflatoxin B1 representing 80.0% with a concentration range of 1.45- 12.0 μg/kg. Quality control and validation was also carried. The detection limits were 0.84 and 2.70 (MDL, LOQ) respectively. The samples contain aflatoxin within the permissible limits.