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Y. WANG, J. M. King, J. N. Losso, and Z. Xu. Dept. of Food Science, LSU AgCenter, 111 Food Science Bldg., Louisiana State Univ ., Baton Rouge, LA 70803-4200 Aflatoxins, especially AFB1, can cause serious problems in human and animal health. Aflatoxin contamination impacts the agricultural economy because of the loss of produce, the time and costs. Many methods have been tested for destroying aflatoxins. Ozonation is a potential alternative to ammoniation for decontamination of corn. Ozone has been shown to reduce aflatoxin levels up to 95% in whole corn. Lutein which can be found in corn has been shown to have antimutagenic properties against aflatoxin. However, ozone treatment could attack lutein and other nutrients in addition to the aflatoxin. Our objectives were to determine the levels of lutein and to evaluate the proteins in the corn before and after ozonation. Samples of clean and contaminated corn were treated with 12 to 14 wt% ozone for 96 hours at a flow rate of 2 L per min. Lutein was extracted with acetone after grinding and saponification; and analyzed by HPLC. SDS-PAGE was used to determine the molecular weights of protein after defatting with petroleum ether. The concentrations of lutein in the clean corn with ozonation, clean corn without ozonation, contaminated corn with ozonation and contaminated corn without ozonation were respectively 21.0 ppm, 30.0 ppm, 12.6 ppm, and 13.1 ppm. The levels of lutein decreased after ozonation and the level of lutein in the clean corn was higher than that in the contaminated corn. Protein bands were observed at 15KDa and 22KDa for zein, and 50KDa for a glutelin residue and these bands and hence protein molecular weights were not affected by ozonation. These results indicate that ozone can destroy the lutein but does not influence the proteins. These results show that although ozone can be used to destroy aflatoxins in corn, it may decrease antimutagenic compounds in the process, which in turn may affect the nutritional quality of the corn.
Session 32, Food Chemistry: Component interactions and processing effects
2005 IFT Annual Meeting, July 15-20 - New Orleans, Louisiana |