ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

S.M.N. Moustafa1,2 and H.M.A. Abdelzaher1
1Department of Biology, College of Science, Aljouf University, Sakaka, 42421, Saudi Arabia.
2Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Minia University, El-Minia, 61511, Egypt.
J. Pure Appl. Microbiol., 2016, 10 (3): 1817-1824
© The Author(s). 2016
Received: 10/06/2016 | Accepted: 14/08/2016 | Published: 30/09/2016
Abstract

A lot of countries around the world are seeking to strategic storage of large quantities of wheat grain in giant silos for use in the food industry for humans, animals and poultry.  Length of the period of transport and storage, which can be exposed to amounts of moisture qualifies them to serious injury of many types of dangerous fungi. Objectives of this study were to identify fungi mounted on wheat grain stored in the main silo in the city of Sakaka, Saudi Arabia and to study the ability of these fungal spores and conidia to cause damage to people exposed to inhalation of large quantities of the dust of wheat grain in causing lyses of human red blood cells.  Aspergillus was consistently the most frequent genus (100% of places) and contributed by A. flavus and A. niger were of high frequency (20 places out of 20) contributing 19.3% and 19% (total 38.3%) of the total count, respectively.  Penicillum was recovered from 18 samples matching 36.5% of total count fungal isolates. It was represented by P. frequentans and P. islandicum sharing 18.5% and 18%, respectively.  Ulocladium atrum gave 15.7% of the total count but with low occurrence. Circinella umbellata and Gliocladium sp.  were less frequently isolated representing 7.4% and 2.1% of total count.  The tested 7 fungi proved  the ability to break down human red blood cells but with varying degrees in varying significant intensity.

Keywords

Fungi, Hemolytic activity, Sakaka, Silo, Spores and Conidia.

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© The Author(s) 2016. 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.