Natural occurrence of aflatoxin B1, ochratoxin A and citrinin in Croatian fermented meat products

When domestic animals are exposed to mycotoxins, significant amounts of the latter shall be carried over into animal products such as milk, eggs and meat. This study was carried out in order to determine the possible presence of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), ochratoxin A (OTA) and citrinin (CIT) in game sausages (n = 15), semi-dry sausages (n = 25) and fermented dry-meat products (n = 50), randomly taken from individual producers and the Croatian market. AFB1 and OTA were quantified using ELISA, while CIT was quantified using HPLC-fluorescence detector. Out of 90 samples, the fungi most frequently isolated from dry-cured meat products were of Penicillium species, while Aspergillus was isolated from only one sample. As much as 68.88% of the samples were positive for mycotoxins. Finally, the analysis of different types of meat products resulted in OTA identification in 64.44%, CIT identification in 4.44% and AFB1 identification in 10% of the samples. The maximum OTA concentrations established in the commercial sausage samples equalled to 7.83 μg/kg, while that of AFB1 amounted to 3.0 μg/kg. Generally, although OTA was detected in all three types of products in different percentage shares, mutual differences were not statistically significant (P > 0.05).