Aflatoxin M₁: biological decontamination methods in milk and cheese

Dairy cattle when fed on aflatoxin B-1 may excrete aflatoxin M-1 in milk as a consequence of dietary exposure. Once AFM(1) is excreted in milk, it is present in dairy products such as cheese, yogurt, among others. This mycotoxin is quite resistant to temperature therefore heat treatments like pasteurization and ultra-pasteurization are not enough to inactivate it. In this context, this article provides an overview of the biological decontamination methods on milk and cheese of the last decade, as a contribution to evaluate the evolution of this strategy as well as its efficiency according to their authors. Relevant studies published between January 2009 and May 2019 were selected after a systematic search of the literature in PubMed, Science direct and Google Scholar databases. According with our research in the last decade few studies have been published on these methods and unfortunately none of the published studies tested such methods in cheese. Throughout the research many studies on decontamination methods were found, however, in phosphate buffered saline solution or in culture medium. Further studies on biological decontamination on milk and mainly on cheese are necessary for this technique to be better developed and applied to a large scale in the industries.