Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The search for new antimicrobial compounds and the optimization of production methods turn the use
of antimicrobial susceptibility tests a routine. The most frequently used methods are based on agar
diffusion assays or on dilution in agar or broth. For filamentous fungi, the most common antimicrobial
activity detection methods comprise the co-culture of two filamentous fungal strains or the use of fungal
extracts to test against single-cell microorganisms. Here we report a rapid, effective and reproducible
assay to detect fungal antimicrobial activity against single-cell microorganisms. This method allows an
easy way of performing a fast antimicrobial screening of actively growing fungi directly against yeast.
Because it makes use of an actively growing mycelium, this bioassay also provides a way for studying
the production dynamics of antimicrobial compounds by filamentous fungi. The proposed assay is less
time consuming and introduces the innovation of allowing the direct detection of fungal antimicrobial
properties against single cell microorganisms without the prior isolation of the active substance(s). This is
particularly useful when performing large screenings for fungal antimicrobial activity. With this bioassay,
antimicrobial activity of Hypholoma fasciculare against yeast species was observed for the first time.
Description
Keywords
Antimicrobial assay Anti-yeast activity Filamentous fungus Microbiological method
Citation
Pereira, Eric Carvalho; Santos A.; Reis, Francisca; Tavares, Rui Manuel; Baptista, Paula; Lino-Neto, Teresa; Almeida-Aguiar, Cristina (2013). A new effective assay to detect antimicrobial activity of filamentous fungi. Microbiological Research. ISSN 0944-5013. 168:1, p. 1-5
Publisher
Elsevier