Rapid elimination of foodborne and environmental fungal contaminants by benzo analogs

Abstract

BACKGROUND Contamination of food or the environment by fungi, especially those resistant to conventional fungicides or drugs, represents a hazard to human health. The objective of this study is to identify safe, natural antifungal agents that can remove fungal pathogens or contaminants rapidly from food and / or environmental sources. RESULTS Fifteen antifungal compounds (nine benzo derivatives as candidates; six conventional fungicides as references) were investigated. Three benzo analogs, namely octyl gallate (OG), trans‐cinnamaldehyde (CA), and 2‐hydroxy‐5‐methoxybenzaldehyde (2H5M), at 1 g L−1 (3.54 mmol), 1 mL L−1 (7.21 mmol), 1 mL L−1 (5.39 mmol), respectively, achieved ≥99.9% fungal death after 0.5, 2.5 or 24 h of treatments, respectively, in in vitro phosphate‐buffered saline (PBS) bioassay. However, when OG, CA, and 2H5M were examined in commercial food matrices, organic apple, or grape juices, only CA maintained a similar level of antifungal activity, compared with a PBS bioassay. trans‐Cinnamaldehyde showed higher antifungal activity at pH 3.5, equivalent to that of commercial fruit juices, than at pH 5.6. In soil sample tests, the application of 1 mL L−1 (7.21 mmol) CA to conventional maize / tomato soil samples (pH 6.8) for 2.5 h resulted in ≥99.9% fungal death, indicating CA could also eliminate fungal contaminants in soil. While the conventional fungicide thiabendazole exerted antifungal activity comparable to CA, thiabendazole enhanced the production of carcinogenic aflatoxins by Aspergillus flavus, an undesirable side effect. CONCLUSION trans‐Cinnamaldehyde could be developed as a potent antifungal agent in food processing or soil sanitation by reducing the time / cost necessary for fungal removal. Published 2020. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Counting and identification of molds and yeasts in dry salted shrimp commercialized in Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil

“…Among microorganisms identified in this study, it is considered that Aspergillus, Penicillium and Fusarium are potential producers of mycotoxins, which can cause serious neurogenic, teratogenic, carcinogenic and immunosuppressive problems (Calvet et al, 2012;Sun et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2020). The Cladosporium, in turn, is generally considered a food contaminant, but some species are pathogenic to humans, related to skin infections, rhinosinusitis, brain abscess and septicemia (Menezes et al, 2017;Garcia et al, 2018;Ahn et al, 2019;Batra et al, 2019).…”

“…Oliveira et al (2019), when analyzing shrimp samples of Macrobrachium amazonicum, also isolated Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, Cladosporium and Curvularia in Sabouraud dextrose agar, coinciding with our results demonstrated in PDA. Describing this fungal variability related to the contamination of crustaceans is essential to better understand the dynamics of pathogens and the characteristics of harmful bioactive and mycotoxins to the consumer population of products of marine origin, establishing measures for the prevention and control of possible risks to public health, because certain fungal molecules are responsible for poisoning (Calvet et al, 2012;Barreto et al, 2016;Kim et al, 2020).…”

“…In addition, fungi produce mycotoxins that are deposited in food and pose risks to public health. The main agents involved belong to the genres Fusarium, Penicillium and Aspergillus (Sun et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2020).…”

The AFLATOX® Project: Approaching the Development of New Generation, Natural-Based Compounds for the Containment of the Mycotoxigenic Phytopathogen Aspergillus flavus and Aflatoxin Contamination

“…Nowadays, food safety represents a public health priority and deals with the food safeguarding and protection from harmful chemical and biological agents affecting consumer health [ 1 , 2 ]. The contamination of food and feed commodities by harmful fungi has become a recurring human health and security issue [ 3 ], since mycotoxigenic species can contaminate cereals and derived products and produce mycotoxins, toxic secondary metabolites typically synthesized by filamentous fungal genera Aspergillus, Fusarium and Penicillium [ 4 , 5 ]. Among all mycotoxins, aflatoxins (AFs) deserve a particularly high attention because of their acute and chronic hepatotoxicity and their severe carcinogenicity, as reported by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), that classifies aflatoxins as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) [ 6 ].…”