Proximate composition, fungal isolation and contamination of aflatoxin B1 in chickpea seeds from the Punjab, Pakistan.

Chickpea, Cicer arietinum L., is a nutrient rich crop that is widely cultivated and consumed in Pakistan. However, chickpea is highly prone to fungal growth leading to contamination with aflatoxins, the most potent carcinogen found in nature. In this study, fifty chickpea seed samples were collected from the local markets of the Punjab, Pakistan, to evaluate their nutritional quality, fungal and AFB₁ contamination. Proximate analysis suggested that chickpea seeds contained 5.5–6.93% moisture, 62.24–63.24% carbohydrates, 22.75–23.44% protein, 4.99–5.4% fat, 5.62–5.84% fiber and 2.92–3.16% ash. Morphological identification techniques revealed fourteen fungal species belonging to six fungal genera from which Aspergillus flavus was the leading contaminant. AFB₁ analysis revealed that sixty-two percent samples were contaminated with AFB₁. All the AFB₁ positive samples contained AFB₁ level more than 2 ppb and 12.9% samples contain AFB₁ level more than 20 ppb, exceeded the maximum limit (ML) assigned by EU and USA (FDA & FAO) respectively. The results of the present studies reported that chickpea is a highly contaminated commodity in terms of fungi and AFB₁ that's why further investigations and monitoring are required to reduce the fungal and AFB₁ contamination. These baseline data are an initial step in the effort to deal with this significant food safety issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]