Abstract
Mycotoxins are produced by the secondary metabolism of many fungi and can be found in almost 25% of the world's agricultural commodities. These compounds are toxic to humans, animals, and plants and therefore, efforts should be made to avoid mycotoxin contamination in food and feed. Besides, up to 25% of all harvested fruits and vegetables are lost due to storage molds and/or mycotoxin contamination and many methods have been applied to mitigate these issues, but most of them rely on the use of fungicides. Although chemicals are often the first defensive line against mycotoxigenic fungi, the indiscriminate use of fungicides are awakening the public perception due to their noxious effects on the environment and human/animal health. Thus, there is an increasing public pressure for a safer and eco-friendly alternative to control these organisms. In this background, biological control using microbial antagonists such as bacteria, fungi and yeasts have been shown to be a feasible substitute to reduce the use of chemical compounds. Despite of the positive findings using the biocontrol agents only a few products have been registered and are commercially available to control mycotoxin-producing fungi. This review brings about the up-to-date biological control strategies to prevent or reduce harvested commodity damages caused by storage fungi and the contamination of food and feed by mycotoxins.
Highlights
Postharvest diseases, caused by storage moulds, account for considerable levels of postharvest losses
There are a variety of microrganisms which may be used as biocontrol agents against mycotoxigenic fungi that include different species of yeasts, fungi, and bacteria
We reviewed the major trends on biological control which has been considerated an effective approach to reduce the postharvest losses caused by store fungi and mycotoxin contamination
Summary
Synthetic fungicides are the primary means by which postharvest diseases is controlled (KORSTEN, 2006; DAL BELLO et al, 2008), currently the global trend is turned to safer and eco-friendly alternative approaches (JANISIEWICZ; KORSTEN, 2002; MARI; NERI; BERTOLINI, 2007; SHARMA et al, 2009) One of these possibilities is the use of antagonistic microorganisms to control mycotoxigenic fungi. Many of the storage fungi may produce a plenty of natural products, often called secondary metabolites, which include pigments, toxins, plant growth regulators, antibiotics (CALVO et al, 2002; PROCTOR et al, 2009). Decontamination of food or feed are extremely difficult (RICHARD, 2007) and to avoid medical or veterinary problems usually the contaminated commodities or byproducts are destroyed
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