The Minimum Inhibition and Growth Concentrations for Controlling Fungal Infections as well as Ghost Cells Preparation: Aspergillus flavus as a Model

Abstract

There is an increasing interest toward the understanding of the important fungus, Aspergillus flavus, which has a high impact on our health and economy. Controlling such microbe could be achieved by evacuating its cells using simple tool. Recently, the Sponge-Like protocol for bacterial ghosts' preparation was introduced. Then, this protocol concept was extended to include not only bacterial cells but also yeast cells as well as viruses. In this study, for the first time we applied this protocol to pathogenic fungi as Aspergillus flavus turning it to unviable, dead and evacuated ghost cells. We introduce the idea of using the minimum growth concentration (MGC) and the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) for controlling Aspergillus flavus and other type of fungi either in our food or those infecting us. Using mixture of compounds proves to have effect on certain microbes upon the use of their minimum effect, which could be a solution for treating many diseases without damaging the cells and tissues as well as our organs. A. flavus which is responsible for causing different superficial infections besides its ability to produce hazardous aflatoxins was used as a model in this study. The future will show an increasing interest in this protocol either for ghost cells preparation or controlling pathogens with minimum side effects of the used destabilizing and killing compounds or drugs. Any chemical compound that could achieve the same goal is invited. We strongly recommend and encourage conducting research in this field using the same or similar tactics and idea.

Recent Approaches towards Control of Fungal Diseases in Plants: An Updated Review

“…Our research group has recently developed a phytopathogenic fungi control trial involving a model of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger infection in the tissue culture of the jojoba plant [12]. In this study, we applied the sponge-like protocol for evacuating microbial cells [111][112][113][114][115][116][117] in protecting in vitro tissue cultures of plants against fungal pathogens to establish the use of this protocol and ghost techniques in controlling plant fungal diseases. This work is a step towards a new approach for controlling plant fungal diseases that can be useful for research purposes or may be developed to be introduced in field applications.…”

“…The sponge-like protocol was principally created to employ cheap and safe chemical compounds (NaOH, SDS, NaHCO 3 , and H 2 O 2 ) for microbial ghost cell preparation for various applications [112]. Ghosts from various microbes were produced by this gentle chemical protocol that was applied to induce evacuation-pores at the microbial cell wall [12,[111][112][113][114][115][116][117]. This protocol is unique as it combines the use of minimum inhibition concentration (MIC, which kills microbial cells under minimal killing conditions) and minimum growth concentration (MGC, which allows cells to escape and live but still affects their cell wall) of active chemicals responsible for killing microbes according to the optimal experimental design to prepare microbial ghosts mapped by the full or reduced Plackett-Burman experimental design.…”