engleski

Strategy for the mitigation of patulin contamination in fresh apples: Penicilium expansum resistant apple cultivars

The 25-50% of the total world annually fruit loss is caused by some mycotoxigenic foodborne fungi ; i.e. mostly by Penicillium expansum. Apart from the fact that the fungal contamination causes economic losses, it is also followed by the accumulation of patulin in apple fruits. This fact negatively affects food safety and human health. Recently, a growing number of studies have sought apple cultivars with superior resistance to P. expansum. This strategy aims to reduce the decay and accumulation of patulin in apples, even at the damaged fruits that originate from selected apple cultivars. Regarding this problem and possible solutions, attention is drawn to traditional apple cultivars, which apple fruits contain higher amount of polyphenolic compounds. Such compounds are the potential bearers of apple resistance to plant diseases, as well as to abiotic stress from various sources. Traditional apple cultivars showed great potential for P. expansum infection resistance due to higher levels of polyphenols, procyanidins, dihydrochalones, flavan-3-ols, flavonols and phenolic acids, at least according to literature data. For this purpose of the possible solutions finding, in vitro study of the resistance of the five Croatian traditional and five commercial apple cultivars to P. expansum infection was conducted. Moreover, subsequent production of patulin was determined. Apple fruit samples from selected cultivars were sliced at 1 cm slices. In the center hole of sterilised apple slices 240 days old P. expansum CBS 325.48 culture disc was transferred in the safety hood cabinet. Inoculated samples were incubated in Petri diches (9 cm diameter) at 29°C until fungal colonies reached maximum of 9 cm. For the polyphenol content determination HPLC method was used, while patulin concentrations were determined by using of LC-MS/MS method. Total of 19 individual phenolic compounds were detected ; traditional apple cultivars showed the highest amount polyphenols between tested samples. It should underline that cultivar 'Kandaska Reneta' had the highest amount of polyphenols (7720.02 μg/g) and highest content of phloridzin (580.41± 97.44 μg/g). Cultivar ‘Bobovec’ showed the highest content of procyanidin B2 (2687.72 ± 46.61 μg/g). Regarding the patulin analysis, it was detected in ‘Idared’ (10.93 ± 0.15 µg/kg) and ‘Božićnica’ (5.14 ± 0.69 µg/kg) samples. In conclusion, the results of the study showed exclusive insight and comparison of the selected traditional Croatian and conventional apple cultivars and their resistance to P. expansum infection. Based on experimental data, selected traditional apple cultivars showed certain resistance to infection by P. expansum and for sure they contain higher concentrations of polyphenolic compounds.

traditional Croatian apple cultivars, patulin, polyphenols

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