| Summary: | Acute stunting in children, liver cancer, and death often occur due to human exposure to aflatoxins in food. The severity of aflatoxin contamination depends on the type of <i>Aspergillus</i> fungus infecting the crops. In this study, <i>Aspergillus</i> species were isolated from households’ staple foods and were characterized for different aflatoxin chemotypes. The non-aflatoxigenic chemotypes were evaluated for their ability to reduce aflatoxin levels produced by aflatoxigenic <i>A. flavus</i> strains on maize grains. <i>Aspergillus flavus</i> (63%), <i>A. tamarii</i> (14%), and <i>A. niger</i> (23%) were the main species present. The <i>A. flavus</i> species included isolates that predominantly produced aflatoxins B1 and B2, with most isolates producing a high amount (>20 ug/µL) of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), and a marginal proportion of them also producing G aflatoxins with a higher level of aflatoxin G1 (AFG1) than AFB1. Some non-aflatoxigenic <i>A. tamarii</i> demonstrated a strong ability to reduce the level of AFB1 by more than 95% when co-inoculated with aflatoxigenic <i>A. flavus.</i> Therefore, field evaluation of both non-aflatoxigenic <i>A. flavus</i> and <i>A. tamarii</i> would be an important step toward developing biocontrol agents for mitigating field contamination of crops with aflatoxins in Uganda.
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