OCCURENCE OF OCHRATOXIN A IN BOTANICAL PRODUCTS COMMERCIALIZED IN TURKEY

Abstract

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a nephrotoxic myco-toxin and one of the common contaminants of various foodstuffs. OTA contamination of ginger, turmeric, liquorice and nutmeg was determined using HPLC-fluorescence technique after immunoaffinity column clean-up. Limit of quantification (LOQ) and limit of detection (LOD) for OTA were 0.05 and 0.015 mu g/kg, respectively. Nine out of 13 (69.2%) ginger samples, four out of 7 (57.1%) liquorice samples twelve out of 12 (100%) turmeric samples and seven out of 7 (100%) nutmeg samples contained OTA in the ranging from 0.05 to 2.1, 0.7 to 121.3, 0.2 to 16.3 mu g/kg and 0.1 to 43.7 mu g/kg, respectively. Overall, one liquorice (121.3 mu g/kg), one turmeric (16.3 mu g/kg) and two nutmeg (32-43.7 mu g/kg) samples were contaminated with OTA exceeded the permisble limits established by EU. Overall, this is the first report on the OTA contamination of botanical products and we observed preliminary results which would contribute to the further studies in Turkey.