Kedjebo Kra Brou Didier^1,, Boli Zamblé Bi Irié Abel¹, Dosso Fatoumata¹, Horro Opri Tatiana¹, Sika André Emmanuelle¹, Ouattara Lacinan¹, Guehi Tagro Simplice¹

The presence of mycotoxins in some foods for human consumption is emerging as an important public health issue and has created a need for more information about the occurrence of molds in tropical crops and by-products. This study aimed to investigate the abundance and diversity of total microfungi in 176 samples of oilseeds/derived pastes, maize grains/flours, and millet collected from Abobo markets and Adjamé two towns in Abidjan. To isolate contaminating molds, groundnut, and pistachio seeds, maize, and millet grains were cultured directly on Sabouraud chloramphénicol agar medium while pastes from oil seeds or flours from cereals were analyzed using the decimal dilution method. The isolates of microfungi were purified by cloning subculture technic. The macroscopic and microscopic morphological characteristics of each mold isolate were carried out for the identification of its genus. A total of 17 isolates of molds were found in oilseeds and their pastes and 36 from cereals and their derived flours. Based on their characteristics, these fungi isolates were grouped into 9 genera: Mucor, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, Rhizomucor, Rhizopus, and Chrysosporium. Among them, the mold strains belonging to the Aspergillus genus predominated the mycoflora with isolation frequency ranging from 75 to 100 %. The predominance of the Aspergillus fungi highlighted a serious risk of mycotoxins production in the crops and their by-products for Ivorian consumption. Proper storage is recommended owing to the public health concern due to oilseeds, cereals, and their by-product shelf life, biostability, and safety.

identification molds genera, cereals, oilseeds, by-products