Plant-based natural flavonoids show strong inhibition of aflatoxin production and related gene expressions correlated with chemical structure

Aflatoxins are strong carcinogenic and mutagenic fungal metabolites, and aflatoxin contamination is a critical issue in agriculture and food production. Natural flavonoids can suppress aflatoxin biosynthesis; however, the structure-activity relationship remains unclear. In the present study, a total of 36 structurally related natural flavonoids were tested against the aflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus, both in-vitro and in-situ (on maize kernels), to investigate their structure-activity relationship and biological activity. Aflatoxin production (IC