Investigation of diversity and dominance of fungal biota in stored wheat grains from governmental warehouses in West Bengal, India

Abstract

BACKGROUND Fungal infestation is a leading cause of qualitative and quantitative deterioration of stored wheat grains. Limited information is available on the spatial distribution of fungal biota associated with stored wheat grains in India. Fungi were isolated and characterized from nine stored wheat grain samples in three warehouses of the Food Corporation of India, located in three agro‐climatic zones (Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia) of West Bengal in India. RESULTS Maximum density and fungal diversity were observed in dichloran glycerol agar (DG‐18) medium and the number increased with the increase of storage duration. Samples collected from Purulia showed maximum fungal diversity than that from Bankura and Paschim Medinipur. A total of 284 fungal isolates were obtained, classified into 29 operational taxonomic units (based on amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis of 18S and internal transcribed spacer sequences), and identified as 24 different fungal species. The majority of fungal isolates belonged to Aspergillus flavus (35%) followed by Rhizopus oryzae (13%) and Eurotium amstelodami (9%). Aspergillopepsin O (PEPO) gene and aflatoxin biosynthetic pathway gene, nor‐1, were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from 91% and 71% of Aspergillus flavus isolates, respectively, indicating their aflatoxin producing ability. Aflatoxin production was further confirmed by ammonia vapour test, thin layer chromatography (TLC) and high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). CONCLUSION The presence of toxigenic fungi in stored wheat grain emphasizes the necessity of quarantine measures of stored grains before placing them in the public domain to save consumers from health hazards. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry

Susceptibility of Common Bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris L) Cultivars Grown in Menoua Division, West Region of Cameroon to Storage Fungi Pathogens

“…From the study, stored common bean cultivars were shown to be infected with fungi. Studies carried out by Kumari, et al [25] on stored food grains in some regions in India demonstrated that the contamination of food grains by fungi Pinto bean cultivar, Pea bean cultivar and Navy bean cultivar with mean values of 2.20 ± 0.45, 2.20 ± 1.30 and 1.20 ± 0.84 respectively (Table 2). Based on these findings, these cultivars were identified as the least susceptible to fungi infection.…”

Characterisation of Fungi of Stored Common Bean Cultivars Grown in Menoua Division, Cameroon

“…The identity of the fungal species was established based on both the query coverage and percentage similarity of the input ITS sequence to the reference sequences in the gene bank. Reference sequence similarity of fungi above 95 % to the input ITS sequence is considered to be of same genus while similarity above 98 % is considered to be of the same species (Kumari et al, 2019, Sampietro et al 2010). An unrooted phylogenetic tree for the DNA sequences was constructed to show relationship between fungal isolates using the neighbor joining algorithm using Clustal-W (Larkin et al 2007).…”

Recent progress in mycotoxins detection based on surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy

“…To address this problem, the combination of separation techniques and SERS can be a promising candidate, because these pretreatment methods can remove matrix interferences and further improve SERS detection selectivity. It is well known that TLC can serve as a universal method widely used to detect AFs (Kumari, Jayachandran, & Ghosh, 2019). Benefiting from the fluorescence property of the coumarin core of AFs, spots of AFs can be easily identified on a TLC plate.…”