Common Fungi Found on Spoiled Fruits in Local Markets | InformativeBD

Idrees Ahmed Qureshi, Sham Lal, Sapna, Pardeep Kumar, Javed Ahmed Ujjan,Om Parkash, and Nisar Ahmed Kanhar, from the different institute of the Pakistan. wrote a research article about, Common Fungi Found on Spoiled Fruits in Local Markets. entitled, Fungi associated with spoiled fruits vended in local market. This research paper published by the International Journal of Biosciences (IJB). an open access scholarly research journal on Biosciences . under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences | INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

Fruits spoilage causes threat to human health and responsible for great economic loss worldwide. This study was conducted to isolate and identify fungi responsible for spoilage of fruit commonly sold in Panj Gula market, Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan. A total of 60 spoiled fruits, 10 samples from each different fruit includingstrawberry (Fragariaananassa), orange (Citrus sinensis), papaya (Carica papaya), melon (Cucumis melo), apple (Malus domestica) and guava (Psidium guajava) were collected aseptically in sterile polyethene bag and delivered to microbiology laboratory at refrigerated temperature. Fungi were isolated and identifiedby using culturing and microscopic methods. Seventy seven fungal isolates belonging to five different genera, Aspergillus spp., Penicillium spp., Alternaria spp., Rhizopus spp., and Yeastwere isolated from spoiled fruits. Aspergillus spp. had the highest occurrence in all the fruits tested with a frequency of 40.26% followed by Penicillium spp. (24.67%), Alternaria spp. (20.78%), Rhizopus spp. (9.1%), and Yeast (5.19%). The results of this study suggest that fruits are spoiled with variety of fungi which causes great economic loss of country. In addition, isolation of pathogenic fungi in this study highlights the risk to human and animal health associated with spoiled fruits. Therefore improved preservation methods are required to prolong the shelf life of fruits and minimize the health hazard.

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Introduction

Fruits have got an important role commercially as well as nutritionally. For balanced diet and keeping good health, fruits intake is necessary since they are source of vitamins and essential minerals. Although fruits are easily available worldwide, the limiting factor that affects their economic value is short shelflife due to bacterial and fungal attack. 

Due to containing high amount of sugar, low pH, and ideal water activity fruits are prone to bacterial and fungal spoilage (Droby, 2006; Singh and Sharma, 2007). On fruits, fungi overgrow bacteria, since they prefer to grow at low pH. Some fungi can start spoilage of fruits from the fields, while others can only contaminate and proliferate after harvesting when the plant natural defense system is reduced (Tournas and Katsoudas, 2005). It has been reported previously that about 20% of the harvested fruits is spoiled even in developed countries (Droby, 2006; Zhu, 2006). In developing countries, post-harvest losses of fruit is more severe due to less storage facilities.

Globally various researchers have reported postharvest fungalspoilage. For example, Akhter et al., (2009) isolated Colletotrichum species from strawberry; Sharma et al., (2013) isolated 11 fungal species from local fruits; El-Gali, (2016) isolated 12 fungal species of 8 genera from various fruits; Mailafiaet al., (2017) isolated 7 fungal isolates from variety of fruits; Biyik (2018)isolated 11 different fungal species from strawberries.

Fungal spoilage is responsible for organoleptic changes including change in texture and flavors of fruit. In addition, some moldshave been reported to produce hazardous metabolic products such as patulin, byssotoxin A, malformins, naphthopyrones and related mycotoxins (Frisvad and Samson, 1991; Pitt and Hocking, 1997; Beuchat and Pitt, 2001; Tournas and Stack, 2001), which poses threat to human and animal health. The use of synthetic fungicides mayreduce the fungal spoilage, however, use of same fungicides for long time could lead to resistance among fungiagainst fungicides (Spotts and Cervantes, 1986). Moreover, high residue of pesticides in fruits limits the use of pesticides.

There is limited published data on fungi which cause the post-harvest diseases in local fruits. Therefore, present study was conducted to study fungal pathogens responsible for post harvesting spoilage of some fruits available locally. 

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