Accumulation Of Aflatoxins And Its Effect On The Internal Quality Of Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by toxigenic fungi which pose a serious threat to the health of humans and animals, among which, aflatoxins including AFB1, AFB2,AFG1 and AFG2 are the most common and toxicity members of mycotoxins. Currently, AFB1 has been classified as human carcinogens in the group 1 by International Agency for Research on Cancer(IARC). It was easy to contaminate various mycotoxins produced by toxigenic fungi in the process of growth, harvest, processing, transportation and storage of herbal medicine due to improper handling, which could cause a security problem for the clinical application of traditional Chinese medicine and pose a threat to the health of people.Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium(CRP), as an edible Chinese herbal medicine, is commonly used in pharmaceuticals and food process industry, as well as light industry. However, CRP contains a series of flavones glycosides and polysaccharides, and it is vulnerable to effect by AFs during storage. Here, we set different temperature and humidity by response surface method to study the production, mechanism of action and accumulation of aflatoxins and analyze its impact on the quality of CRP in order to ensure the safety and quality of CRP and its related products and provide theoretical basis for the comprehensive quality assessments and storage of CRP. The main marking results were as follows:1. An UFLC-QTrap-MS/MS method was established for the determination seven flavonoids including hesperidin, neohesperidin, naringin, narirutin, tangeretin, nobiletin and sinensetin, it was successfully used to quantify seven flavonoids in 16 batches of CRP samples from different sources in China. It provided technical support for the multicomponent analysis and quality control of traditional Chinese medicine and guaranteed the safety and effectiveness for clinical application of CRP.2. An UFLC-QTrap-MS/MS method was established for the determination of AFB1, AFB2,AFG1 and AFG2 in Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium, it was successfully used to detect AFs in 16 batches of CRP samples. The results showed some CRPs were contaminated by AFs.The accumulation of AFs will be produce a great threat to humans and animals. So the supervisory departments should pay attention to the contamination of AFs in CRP and take effective measures to guarantee the safety of clinical application for people.3. In this study we taking CRP as an example to explore the production and accumulation of aflatoxins and analyze the impact of AFs accumulation on the internal quality of CRP.We take the technical question up to scientific problems. In addition, the results and reasons of aflatoxin contamination were discussed and new ideas and methods were provided for storage of CRP, as well as the fields and directions were expanded in quality control of CRP.