Vol. 9(21), pp. 1394-1401, 27 May, 2015 DOI: 10.5897/AJMR2015.7408 Article Number: 099ACD753272 ISSN 1996-0808 Copyright © 2015 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article http://www.academicjournals.org/AJMR African Journal of Microbiology Research Full Length Research Paper Logistic regression applied to the incidence of Aspergillus producer of mycotoxin in cocoa beans cultivated in the state of Rondônia, Brazil Danieli Cristina Schabo 1 *, Luísa Freire 2 , Camila Alvarenga Freire 2 , Fabiana Reinis Franca Passamani 2 , Marcelo Angelo Cirillo 3 and Luís Roberto Batista 2 1 Department of Education, Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rondônia, Colorado do Oeste, RO, Brazil. 2 Department of Food Science, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil. 3 Department of Exact Sciences, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil. Received 3 February, 2015; Accepted 7 May, 2015 The presence of fungi of the genus Aspergillus must be investigated because it is related to the diminishment of quality and consequently to the risk to health of consumers due to the possible production of mycotoxins. In this context, this study was performed with the aim to evaluate the presence of Aspergillus species in cocoa beans produced in the state of Rondônia, Brazil, as well as verify the toxigenic potential of these species and the effect of the geographical origin on the incidence of toxigenic and non-toxigenic species of fungi. The technique of logistic regression was used to estimate the probability of occurrence of the genus Aspergillus. A total of 185 Aspergillus were identified. Among the tested Aspergillus carbonarius, 79.41% produced ochratoxin on levels from 0.08 to 44.09 μg/g in the culture medium. For the other Aspergillus species, the production potential was only assessed, and 3.13% of the A. niger presented potential to produce OTA and 83.33% of A. flavus which was able to produce aflatoxins. The presence of these toxigenic species indicates a potential risk of mycotoxin in cocoa beans and in their derived products in the studied region. Besides, the occurrence of Aspergillus species differed in function of geographical coordinates and temperature, presenting higher probability of occurrence on cocoa beans of municipalities located in Southern Rondônia, Brazil. Key words: Cocoa beans, Aspergillus, mycotoxins, ochratoxin A, aflatoxins, logistic regression, thin layer chromatography, high performance liquid chromatography. INTRODUCTION The importance of cocoa to the industry is attributed to its beans, from which the chocolate and other by products are obtained. Brazil is the sixth largest cocoa producer of the world (International Cocoa Organization, 2013), *Corresponding author. E-mail: danieli.schabo@ifro.edu.br. Tel/Fax: +55 69 3341-2644. Author(s) agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License