Evaluation of Lactobacillus casei Effect on Reduction of Aflatoxin M1 amount in Probiotic Yogurt during Its Shelf Life

Aflatoxin M1 which is one of the aflatoxin B1 metabolites may be in milk of animals via which they have been fed the contaminated feed. According to the important role of milk and dairy products in human nutrition, it is necessary to consider the quality and safety aspects of this worthy food. On the other hand, its contamination by aflatoxin M1 is a threat for the consumers’ health; therefore, to use the procedures to remove or non-activation of aflatoxin M1 in milk and dairy products is required. Microbial detoxification is one of the removal methods of aflatoxins, such as, aflatoxin M1. In this research, the effect of Lactobacillus casei to reduce or eliminate aflatoxin M1 in yogurt during its shelf life has been detected. Lactobacillus casei as probiotic yogurt starter bacteria was cultivated.
Modified milk was infected by aflatoxin M1 in four levels of 0.05, 0.1, 0.5 and 0.75 ppb. The samples were inoculated by Lactobacillus casei as probiotic yogurt starter bacteria. The amounts of residual aflatoxin M1 were evaluated after centrifuging the samples in the first, seventh, fourteenth and twenty-first days by ELISA.
Findings: The results of this research indicate that the presence of Lactobacillus casei was effective on reducing toxin. It was also found the various amounts of aflatoxin M1 don’t affect significantly on descending of toxin.
Discussion & These findings imply that Lactobacillus casei using can be as one of the removal techniques among the microbial detoxification methods of the contaminated food by aflatoxin M1.