Potential of Citrullus colocynthis L. Schrad. Immature Seed Extracts as Food Preservative against a Fungal Mycotoxigenic Contaminant

Francesca Mussi,Zohra Marzouk,Meher Refifa,Belsem Marzouk,Laura Arru,Annamaria Buschini,Serena Montalbano,Francesca Degola,Jamil Kraiem,Alessandra Durazzo

doi:10.1155/2021/4470643

Abstract

The world of plant extracts and natural compounds have long been regarded as a promise land for the individuation of healthy alternatives to chemical preservatives, against microbial contamination, in food and feed commodities. A plethora of aromatic and medicinal plant species have been studied from decades to explore their antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, in order to both validate their ethnobotanical use for healing microbial illnesses and assess their suitability as food preservation agents. In fact, after terrestrialization and during the following evolutionary pathway, plants had to develop chemical compounds—constitutive and/or induced—for defence against specific pathogens, therefore becoming a potential source of new natural products usable with antimicrobial purposes. Aside from the most common contaminants that could occur in foodstuff, mycotoxigenic fungal species represent a big concern, mainly in cereals and derived products: aflatoxins in particular are the most dreaded among such toxic and cancerogenic secondary metabolites, and the control of the main producer Aspergillus flavus is currently one of the most pursued goals in the field of food safety. As aromatic and medicinal plants have a long history of use in the Mediterranean basin for both food preservation and pest control in crops, the exploitation of native species for the control of mycotoxigenic phytopathogens is almost rationale. The present work provides novel insights into the possible use of C. colocynthis seed organic extracts as antimycotoxigenic additives, demonstrating, for some of them, a feasible application as crop and food protectants with specific regard to aflatoxin contamination. Additionally, the evaluation of their cytotoxic potential and nitric oxide production on human cell lines has been reported for the first time.

Highlights

In the field of the pathogenic microorganism control, the problem of food-borne outbreaks has represented a true challenge for health regulatory authorities from decades
Despite the demonstrated antimicrobial effect of countless plant extracts, and the advantages that the use of these products as an alternative of chemical additives can bring in terms of chemical residues and microbial resistance, some drawbacks still deter a large use in food industry; for example, the high variability in effectiveness of these compounds against microorganisms in the laboratory system and in real food systems, the costs associated with the processes for their procurement and/or purification, and the concentration required for the achievement of the most effective containment activity are sometimes discouraging
Immature seed organic extracts of C. colocynthis collected near Medenine (Tunisia), previously obtained and discussed, were used [20], namely, petroleum ether (PE), chloroform (CHL), ethyl acetate (EA), acetone (AC), and methanol (MET), in ascending polarity, that were obtained through Soxhlet extraction. e CHL extract subfraction F19 [21] was included

Summary

Introduction

In the field of the pathogenic microorganism control, the problem of food-borne outbreaks has represented a true challenge for health regulatory authorities from decades. Despite the demonstrated antimicrobial effect of countless plant extracts, and the advantages that the use of these products as an alternative of chemical additives can bring in terms of chemical residues and microbial resistance, some drawbacks still deter a large use in food industry; for example, the high variability in effectiveness of these compounds (pure or in mixture) against microorganisms in the laboratory system and in real food systems, the costs associated with the processes for their procurement and/or purification, and the concentration required for the achievement of the most effective containment activity are sometimes discouraging Even if both the European Commission (EC) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved few essential oils as food preservatives, the problematic reproducibility of their activity represents a main barrier not overcome yet. Commonly used botanical derivatives have become popular as pesticides in organic farming, as organically produced food raises premium prices; their popularity in agriculture is due to the perception that they are safe to use on crops for human consumption if compared to chemical treatments [8]

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