Academic Paper from the year 2024 in the subject Biology - Micro- and Molecular Biology, grade: 2.0, , course: Microbiology, language: English, abstract: Food-spoilage moulds such as Aspergillus, Fusarium & Penicillium are mycotoxinogenic in nature & play an obvious role in the deterioration of the quality & hygiene of foodstuffs by constituting highly toxic metabolites known as mycotoxins. Mycotoxin contamination is still a serious problem in many parts of the world. This poses a threat to both livestock & human health, which results in great worldwide economic losses each year. Diverse physical & chemical methods have been developed for controlling mycotoxin-contaminated food & feed, whereas very few of these techniques have been practically considered. Therefore, a potent method has to be employed to reduce the presence of mycotoxins. Furthermore, some food-spoilage moulds have been discovered to have the capability to resist chemical preservatives, for example sorbate. The reduction of such moulds in food production is now of primary importance & there is great interest in developing effective & safe method for this purpose. It is crucial to reduce food losses by controlling fungal contamination at all stages of food process chains. Three main stages can be defined to group fungal contamination factors:(i) the field, where water, soil & air are natural fungal niches; (ii) raw materials such as post-harvest crops, meats, & milk where fungal occurrence is related to food management during harvest or collecting, transportation, storage, & packaging & (iii) during food processing while manufacturing dairy, bakery, dry-ripened & drink products. Meanwhile, natural preservatives could be an alternative due to disadvantages of pesticides/fungicides & the high cost of production of new chemicals. In addition, the biopreservative capacity of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) is gaining much attention, due to consumers dem& for reducing the use of chemical preservatives. As a result of this, several researchers have exploited antagonistic compounds (such as organic acids, hydrogen peroxide & other antimicrobial compounds such as bacteriocins) produced by LAB which are able to control pathogenic microorganisms & undesirable moulds in food & feed. However, much still need to be done on the antifungal activity of LAB, due to the great dem in finding natural preservative agents that can prevent fungal growth in food & feed. Accordingly, this study evaluates the ability of lactobacillus as a biopreservative agent to prevent food-spoilage moulds both in vitro & in vivo.
