Potential of Different Fungi Species in Biodegradation Field of Phenolic Compounds

Phenolic compounds are dominant pollutants in terrestrial and freshwater environmental that have toxic effects on living organisms at low concentrations, because it has the ability to persist in the ecosystem. So bio-removal is a good technique that employs the metabolic potential of microorganisms to clean up the environmental pollutants and turned into less dangerous or harmless substances. This work aims to the isolation of different species of fungi from wastewater of factories and Red Sea coast to test the ability of these fungi to degrade phenolic compounds. Ten species of fungi and sterile mycelium are used to degrade phenol and its derivatives at different concentrations (0.4%, 0.6% and 0.8%). All fungi species have the ability of degradation of phenol and their derivatives, but P. chrysogenum, Saccharomyces sp. and sterile mycelium exhibited low ability to break down of hydroxyl-benzene, 2-naphthol and 1,3 dihydroxy benzene, respectively.

Aspergillus niger as the Source of Ochratoxin A of Contaminated Pyrus communis in Taif Market

Fruits are one of the most important agricultural products that supply the body with vitamins and essential minerals elements, but it is contaminated by fungi during the period of growth, harvesting and storage. A. niger is one of the species that grows on the fruit during the period of storage, and secretes mycotoxins especially ochratoxin A. This study was conducted with the purpose of isolating and identifying different strains of A. niger from 20 samples of pear collected from Taif markets and to determine the ability of these strains to produce OTA. It was observed that showed that out of 20 pear samples collected, 19 samples were detected to be contaminated with different strains of A. niger and the strains were able to produce OTA. From 27 isolates of A. niger which was used to test the ability of production OTA, 10 strains only produced OTA. The range of OTA in all strains were 0.18 to 9.5 ppb. Representative 27 strains of ochratoxigenic and non ochratoxigenic black Aspergilli isolated were subjected for detection of ochratoxin biosynthesis genes, by using two sets of primer for two genes involved in ochratoxin biosynthetic pathway. Bands of the fragments of PKS15C-MeT and PKS15KS genes visualized at 998 and 776 bp, respectively. Whereas, the presence of four tested genes is not sufficient marker for differentatin between aflatoxigenic and non aflatoxigenic isolates.