Mycotoxins of fungal strains from stored herbal plants and mycotoxin contents of Nigerian crude herbal drugs.

The ability of fungi isolated from stored herbal drug plants to produce mycotoxins in semisynthetic media was studied. The results obtained show that aflatoxins and ochratoxin A, were produced by Aspergillus flavus, A. parasiticus and A. ochraceus isolates. The time-production courses of aflatoxins B1, B2, 1 and ochratoxin A in crude herbal drug preparations show that more of these toxins were produced with increase in time of storage of the drugs. The results indicate that the potential exists for the toxigenic strains to elaborate mycotoxins in a large quantity in herbal drug substrates than in semisynthetic media.