| Summary: | Aflatoxins (AFs) are biologically active toxic metabolites, which are produced by certain toxigenic <i>Aspergillus</i> sp. on agricultural crops. In this study, five edible mushroom-forming fungi were analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography fluorescence detector (HPLC-FLD) for their ability to remove aflatoxin B<sub>1</sub> (AFB<sub>1</sub>), one of the most potent naturally occurring carcinogens known. <i>Bjerkandera adusta</i> and <i>Auricularia auricular-judae</i> showed the most significant AFB<sub>1</sub> removal activities (96.3% and 100%, respectively) among five strains after 14-day incubation. The cell lysate from <i>B. adusta</i> exhibited higher AFB<sub>1</sub> removal activity (35%) than the cell-free supernatant (13%) after 1-day incubation and the highest removal activity (80%) after 5-day incubation at 40 °C. In addition, AFB<sub>1</sub> analyses using whole cells, cell lysates, and cell debris from <i>B. adusta</i> showed that cell debris had the highest AFB<sub>1</sub> removal activity at 5th day (95%). Moreover, exopolysaccharides from <i>B. adusta</i> showed an increasing trend (24–48%) similar to whole cells and cell lysates after 5- day incubation. Our results strongly suggest that AFB<sub>1</sub> removal activity by whole cells was mainly due to AFB<sub>1</sub> binding onto cell debris during early incubation and partly due to binding onto cell lysates along with exopolysaccharides after saturation of AFB<sub>1</sub> binding process onto cell wall components.
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