ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Mohannad Abdullah Alwatban1, S. Hadi2 and M.A. Moslem2
1King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), P. Box 6086, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia.
2Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, P. Box 2455, King Saud University, Riyadh – 14451, Saudi Arabia.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2014;8(5):4061-4069
© The Author(s). 2014
Received: 30/09/2014 | Accepted: 01/10/2014 | Published: 31/10/2014
Abstract

Cladosporium is a mycotoxin secreting and potentially pathogenic fungus frequently occurring in outdoor environments. In this study prevalence of Cladosporium species in the atmosphere within and around Riyadh city was monitored and production of mycotoxin by the isolates was assessed at different incubation temperatures under in vitro conditions. Two hundred air samples were collected from twenty locations of Riyadh. Only 20 samples were found to carry Cladosporium inoculum, belonging to two species, namely, C. cladosporioides and C. sphaerospermum. Crude extracts of the fungal cultures in acetone were scanned by spectrophotometry for presence of mycotoxins. It was noticed that cultures grown at lower temperature (10 and 15°C) yielded higher amount of mycotoxins as compared to cultures incubated at higher temperatures (20-30°C). HPLC assays of the extracts revealed five compounds corroborating with spectrophotometry findings of higher levels at low temperature. LC/GC-MS analysis revealed several compounds known for diverse activities.

Keywords

Airborne fungi, Cladosporium, Environment, Mycotoxin

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© The Author(s) 2014. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.