LAUSR

This study focused on the co-occurrence of aflatoxins (AFs) and ochratoxin A (OTA) in traditionally and industrially dried red pepper flakes (DRPFs) and isot pepper flakes (IPFs). Following the multitoxin immunoaffinity column (IAC) clean-up, high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD) was used to quantify AFs and OTA. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) values were 0.11 and 0.18 μg kg–1 (AFB1), 0.04 and 0.08 μg kg–1 (AFB2), 0.13 and 0.18 μg kg–1 (AFG1), 0.04 and 0.11 μg kg–1 (AFG2), and 0.10 and 0.21 μg kg–1 (OTA), respectively. AFB1, AFB2, AFG1, and OTA were found to be positive in 93, 74, 17, and 94% of all samples, respectively. The contamination levels in positive samples ranged from 0.23 to 38.69, 0.04 to 2.14, 0.13 to 0.88, and 0.18 to 52.19 μg kg–1 for AFB1, AFB2, AFG1, and OTA, respectively, while no AFG2 was found above the detection limit (0.04 μg kg–1). None of the industrial isot peppers exceeded the European Union limits, while the levels of AFB1 (5 μg kg–1), total AFs (10 μg kg–1), and OTA (20 μg kg–1) of the traditional peppers were above the limit by 30% (16/54), 26% (14/54), and 4% (2/54), respectively. Co-occurrence of AFB1-AFB2-OTA was the most frequent, accounting for 54% (29/54) of all samples. At the upper bound (UB), estimated average exposure to AFB1, total AFs, and OTA was determined to be 0.175, 0.189, and 0.124 ng kg–1 bw day–1 in all samples, respectively. The margin of exposure (MoE) value of AFB1 and total AFs was found to be 977 and 909, indicating high health concerns compared to OTA (MoE >10,000). AFB1 and total AFs may result in 0.0058 and 0.0062 liver cancer cases/100,000 person/year at UB, respectively, and weekly OTA exposure was 0.868 ng kg–1 bw, well below the provisional tolerable weekly intake, hence not of health concern. AFs exposure could endanger health, whereas OTA posed no toxicological concerns through dried red pepper consumption