The objectives of the present work were to survey, for the first time, the contamination of Portuguese fresh and dry-cured meat products with ochratoxin A (OTA) and aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁), and to determine the fungi potentially responsible for this contamination. A total of 128 samples including pork fresh legs, dry-cured legs and shoulders, as well as goat and sheep dry-cured legs were analysed. Mycological analysis of these samples yielded a total of 630 fungal isolates. Penicillium sp. was the dominant fungal genus in all products (66% of all isolates). Penicillium nordicum and Aspergillus westerdijkiae were only rarely isolated from pork ham samples. In fresh pork meat, 40% of the samples were contaminated with OTA at levels below 1 μg/kg. In pork dry-cured legs with 20 to 25 months of ripening, 43% of the samples showed detectable contamination, while 18% of the shoulder hams were contaminated. OTA was not detected in any of the goat and sheep samples. OTA contamination does not seem to be a risk in small-piece and short-ripe products like goat and sheep legs, but affects longer ripe products like pork legs and shoulders. Although aflatoxigenic fungi were identified, AFB₁ was not detected in any sample, and it should not be considered a risk in dry-cured hams.

中文翻译：

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葡萄牙猪肉，山羊和绵羊干腌火腿中的霉菌和霉菌毒素。

本工作的目的是第一次调查曲毒素A（OTA）和黄曲霉毒素B ₁（AFB ₁）对葡萄牙鲜肉和干肉产品的污染，并确定可能造成这种情况的真菌污染。共分析了128个样本，包括猪肉新鲜的腿，干腌的腿和肩膀，以及山羊和绵羊干腌的腿。这些样品的真菌学分析产生总共630种真菌分离物。青霉属。是所有产品中占主导地位的真菌属（占所有分离株的66％）。北欧青霉和西曲霉仅从猪肉火腿样品中分离出来。在新鲜猪肉中，40％的样品被低于1μg/ kg的OTA污染。在成熟20至25个月的猪肉干腌腿中，有43％的样品显示出可检测到的污染，而18％的肩火腿则被污染。在任何山羊和绵羊样品中均未检测到OTA。在小块和短熟产品（如山羊腿和羊腿）中，OTA污染似乎没有危险，但会影响较长的成熟产品（如猪腿和肩膀）。尽管已鉴定出黄曲霉毒素真菌，但在任何样品中均未检测到AFB ₁，因此不应将其视为干腌火腿中的风险。