@article{RONOH_Obonyo_Lelmen_2022, title={Aflatoxigenicity in Aspergillus species: Cultural, Molecular and Analytical Analysis }, url={https://conferences.egerton.ac.ke/index.php/euc/article/view/116}, abstractNote={<p>Aflatoxins are some of the most harmful naturally occurring fungal metabolites that have been characterized. They are produced by certain species of fungi belonging to the genus <em>Aspergillus. </em>Due to the growing concern of exposure to aflatoxins, there has been a concerted effort to mitigate their harmful effects. One promising intervention is Biological Control (BC) where non-aflatoxigenic <em>Aspergillus </em>outcompete their aflatoxigenic relatives achieving a reduction in residual toxins. A prerequisite to the success of BC programs is the correct discrimination of aflatoxigenic isolates from non-aflatoxigenic. The current study assessed the aflatoxigenicity of previously isolated <em>Aspergillus </em>spp. native to the Eastern Kenya region (aflatoxin hotspot) with an aim of delineating aflatoxin-producers from non-producers. To determine aflatoxin production, a polyphasic approach, consisting of cultural, molecular and analytical methods was applied. Of the 314 fungi species isolated from maize kernels, a subset of 36 isolates taxonomically identified <em>Aspergillus</em> species was selected for this study. Through culture, Dichlorvos Ammonia (DV-AM) method revealed 52.8% of the isolates as aflatoxigenic while the rest were non-aflatoxigenic. The presence of 10 aflatoxin biosynthesis genes did not correlate with aflatoxigenicity. Furthermore, the aflatoxigenic potential of <em>Aspergillus </em>isolates in live culture was validated by ELISA. A positive correlation was observed between Live cultures and Dichlorvos-ammonia (<em>p > 0.01</em>), suggesting reliability of the two methods at discriminating aflatoxigenic from non-aflatoxigenic <em>Aspergillus</em> isolates. The present work confirms that a single method of analysis may not be sufficient at distinguishing aflatoxigenic from non-aflatoxigenic isolates, as compared to a combination of different approaches</p>}, journal={Egerton University International Conference}, author={RONOH, PETER and Obonyo , Meshack and Lelmen, Elijah}, year={2022}, month={Apr.} }