Abstract
BackgroundPlant essential oils could act effectively against postharvest diseases, α-terpineol, a typical terpenoid of plant essential oils, exhibited strong antifungal activity in against Penicillium italicum, but the possible action mechanism remains undetermined. In present study, α-terpineol was evaluated for antibacterial activity against Penicillium digitatum along with the mode of their antibacterial action.ResultsThe results showed that mycelial growth of P. digitatum was strongly inhibited by α-terpineol, with the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) of 2.00 and 8.00 µl/ml, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy observation revealed that α-terpineol obviously altered the morphology of P. digitatum hyphae by causing the loss of cytoplasm and distortion of mycelia. A rapid increase in the membrane permeability of P. digitatum was observed after treated with MIC or MFC of α-terpineol, evidenced by the release of cell constituents, the extracellular conductivity, and the extracellular pH. In addition, α-terpineol apparently induced a decrease in total lipid contents of P. digitatum cells, indicating the destruction of cell membrane structures after treatment.ConclusionsBased on our study, α-terpineol might affect the cell wall synthesis and lead to the disruption of cell wall. The cell wall disruption affected fungal morphogenesis, the integrity of membrane and leakage of intracellular components, these results suggested that α-terpineol treatment inhibited the growth of P. digitatum.
Highlights
Plant essential oils could act effectively against postharvest diseases, α-terpineol, a typical terpenoid of plant essential oils, exhibited strong antifungal activity in against Penicillium italicum, but the possible action mecha‐ nism remains undetermined
The use of plant essential oils as an alternative to synthetic fungicides has attracted keen interest in the past decades. α-terpineol, a type of terpenoids constituting in many plant essential oils, reportedly exhibits strong antifungal activity (Park et al 2009)
After 4 days of incubation, the mycelial growth of P. digitatum was still totally inhibited by the application of 8.00 μl/ml α-terpineol
Summary
Plant essential oils could act effectively against postharvest diseases, α-terpineol, a typical terpenoid of plant essential oils, exhibited strong antifungal activity in against Penicillium italicum, but the possible action mecha‐ nism remains undetermined. Penicillium digitatum is the most devastating pathogen and causing about 90 % of production losses during postharvest handling of the fruit (Droby et al 2008; Liu et al 2010). This disease is primarily controlled by applying synthetic fungicides (Cañamás et al 2008). This study aims to investigate the antifungal activity of α-terpineol against the mycelial growth of P. digitatum, and to elucidate its possible mode of action
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