ABSTRACT
Food decay by spoilage fungi causes considerable economic losses and constitutes a health risk for consumers due to the potential for fungi to produce mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are metabolic intermediates or products, found as a differentiation product in restricted taxonomic groups, not essential to growth and life of the producing organism and biosynthesized from one or more general metabolites by a wider variety of pathways than is available in general metabolism. Mycotoxins occurring in food commodities are secondary metabolites of filamentous fungi, which frequently occur in major food crops in the field and continue to contaminate cereals, oilseeds nuts and spices during storage. The deterioration of stored food products due to fungi and mycotoxins in humid and warm areas of the world has added a new dimension to the gravity of the problem. Mycotoxigenic fungi contamination leads to reduced yield and poor quality of products and mycotoxicosis among humans and livestock.
