Investigation of aflatoxin M1 presence in goat cheeses retaield at open bazaar

The aim of this study was to detect the presence of Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in goat cheeses produced without used starter culture and retaield in open bazaar by ELISA and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrophotometer (LC-MS) techniques. The mean contamination rate was between 5,68 – 18,57 ng/kg (ppt) in 20 from 82 (24,40%) goat cheese samples analyzed by ELISA. Then, 10 cheese samples randomly chosen from 20 samples contaminated with AFM1 and analyzed by LC-MS. None of the cheese samples contained AFM1 levels above the Turkish legal limit (250 ng/kg) according to ELISA results. According to the data, 10 randomly selected cheese samples contaminated with AFM1 were not over the detectable levels (≥200 ng/kg) analyzed by LC-MS. Consequently, the AFM1 contamination levels determined in this study in goat cheese were not considered to pose a serious public health hazard.