Polyphasic identification of Penicillia and Aspergilli isolated from Italian grana cheese

Abstract

Penicillium and Aspergillus genera, both including mycotoxin producing species, were reported as associated to cheese and cheese working environment, but never studied in an extensive way in Italian grana cheese (Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano). The aim of this work was to address the identification of Aspergilli and Penicillia associated to grana cheese in order to lay down the basis for risk assessment and safe processing for a high quality production. One hundred and four strains belonging to Aspergillus and Penicillium genera were obtained from cheese crust and from ripening room air (with the latter largely dominant), and identified following a polyphasic approach, strongly required for the identification at the species level. Morphological observation was used along with molecular techniques, RAPD-PCR fingerprinting and calmodulin gene sequencing (CaM), the former aimed to limit as much as possible the latter sequencing effort. Seventy four percent of the strains were assigned to Penicillium subgenus Penicillium, section Fasciculata. Main mycotoxin producing species identified were A. flavus, P. crustosum and P. verrucosum, while the dominant species in both air and cheese crust was P. solitum, which has never been so far reported as mycotoxigenic. Results obtained in this study confirmed that mycotoxin contamination is a possible issue to face during grana cheese making.

Mycobiota in Chilean chilli Capsicum annuum L. used for production of Merkén

“…(For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) (Decontardi et al, 2018;González et al, 2017;Garcia et al, 2018). As for the P. glabrum clade, our data corroborates Barreto et al (2011) and Houbraken et al (2014) that indicated high intra-specific β-tubulin variation for this group.…”

Modelling Fungal Growth, Mycotoxin Production and Release in Grana Cheese

“…is reported as the dominant fungal genus growing on cheese [4]. Information about penicillia growing on grana cheese during ripening has been reported by Decontardi et al [10,12]. In particular, P. crustosum and P. solitum were the dominant species isolated, but other mycotoxin producing fungi identified were A. flavus and P. verrucosum.…”

“…A. versicolor CBS 108959 was later identified as A. jensenii by Decontardi et al[12] but A. versicolor will be kept in the text to remain consistent with the CBS website database labelling.…”

Türkiye'de Rize-Ardeşen Yaylalarının Golot Peyniri ile İlişkili Filamentli Funguslar

“…Penicillium solitum was also detected in the Golot cheese samples in our study. Although P. solitum inhabits mainly fruits , the species has also been detected in various cheeses (Anelli et al, 2019;Decontardi et al, 2018;Ramos-Pereira et al, 2019) and meat products (Merla et al, 2018, Pleadin et al, 2017Scaramuzza et al, 2015). This species has not only been isolated from the product, but also from the air itself in the production plants (Scaramuzza et al, 2015), which indicates that air is one of the contamination routes.…”