Fungal spore germination, the critical stage in infection and food spoilage, and weak spot for new antifungal strategies

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Foods and beverages are preserved in order to prevent both spoilage by microorganisms and to ensure food safety. Despite a variety of strategies to preserve foods, the microorganisms fight back and some develop resistance to particular preservatives. Fungi present major problems to the food and beverage industries because fungal spores are prevalent in the environment and the spores grow and develop in many conditions. While acidic conditions may prevent the growth of most bacteria, for example, many species of fungi (and especially the moulds) are able to grow in the highly acidic conditions that are common in soft drinks. Thus, other strategies must be adopted and weak acids are often added to soft drinks in order to inhibit the growth of moulds. Some species of mould are highly sensitive to weak acids but others are resistant and may degrade the weak acid to non-toxic products. One example of that is the conversion of sorbic acid to the volatile compound pentadiene, which confers a taint or off-flavour to the product. We have discovered the mechanism by which sorbic acid is converted to pentadiene and have also shown that the mould spore has that capacity, but not the fully-grown mould. Thus, we aim in this project to understand what triggers that resistance mechanism when spores grow to form the mould. From that understanding will come the means to develop better strategies to prevent food spoilage by moulds.