Fungal flora and deoxynivalenol (DON) level in wheat from Jeddah market, Saudi Arabia

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is one of the least toxic trichothecenes, however, it is the most prevalent trichothecenes in human foods and its presence is an indicator of the possible incidence of other more toxic trichothecenes. This study aimed to explore the fungal flora along with the DON concentration in the collected wheat samples from Jeddah market to correlate between this flora and the detected DON. Whole grain wheat samples were collected from Jeddah market and this represents imported and locally produced wheat. The results indicated in this study showed high incidence of Aspergilli. The high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) chromatogram of the samples showed high DON resolution. DON was detected in a range of 15 to 800 μg/kg in the collected samples although no Fusarium species was detected in these samples. The 200 μg/kg DON level (the safe limit for baby foods and young children) was exceeded by 50% of some of the imported samples. The presence of some toxigenic fungi in these samples should set the alarm of possible contamination of these samples with other mycotoxins during storage. However, the level of DON in all wheat samples was within the permissible level of DON in unprocessed wheat which is 1750 μg/kg according to the European Commission.Keywords: Mycoflora, mycotoxins, deoxynivalenol (DON), wheat, Jeddah, Saudi Arabi

Fungal isolates and their toxicity from different ecosystems in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The fact that toxic species do not always produce toxins and that other species not known to produce toxins were found to be toxic in some environments have been previously reported. However, different fungal species behave unexpectedly in different ecosystems. That is why the main objective of this work was to detect the toxicity of some fungal species existing in some environmentally important ecosystem in Jeddah in order to find a correlation between some of these environmental factors and the detected toxicity. The aim is to use some of the isolated non toxic strains that are capable of acting upon some environmental pollutant as a bioremediation approach. Forty nine fungal isolates were isolated from six different sources and ecosystems in both terrestrial and marine environment (agricultural soil, wheat grain, sewage dump, oily sewage dump, soil around car oil dump and marine fauna). Aflatoxins were detected in 18.4% of the total isolates. All the isolates from marine environment were non toxic to brine shrimp.Keywords: Mycoflora, ecosystems, mycotoxins, brine shrimp bioassay, bioremediation, Jeddah, Saudi ArabiaAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(34), pp. 5590-5598, 23 August, 201

Consanguinity and reproductive health among Arabs

Consanguineous marriages have been practiced since the early existence of modern humans. Until now consanguinity is widely practiced in several global communities with variable rates depending on religion, culture, and geography. Arab populations have a long tradition of consanguinity due to socio-cultural factors. Many Arab countries display some of the highest rates of consanguineous marriages in the world, and specifically first cousin marriages which may reach 25-30% of all marriages. In some countries like Qatar, Yemen, and UAE, consanguinity rates are increasing in the current generation. Research among Arabs and worldwide has indicated that consanguinity could have an effect on some reproductive health parameters such as postnatal mortality and rates of congenital malformations. The association of consanguinity with other reproductive health parameters, such as fertility and fetal wastage, is controversial. The main impact of consanguinity, however, is an increase in the rate of homozygotes for autosomal recessive genetic disorders. Worldwide, known dominant disorders are more numerous than known recessive disorders. However, data on genetic disorders in Arab populations as extracted from the Catalogue of Transmission Genetics in Arabs (CTGA) database indicate a relative abundance of recessive disorders in the region that is clearly associated with the practice of consanguinity