Abstract
Toxigenic moulds can develop on the surface of dry-cured meat products during ripening due to their ecological conditions, which constitutes a risk for consumers. A promising strategy to control this hazard is the use of antifungal microorganisms usually found in these foods. However, to date, the effectiveness of gram-positive catalase-positive cocci (GCC+) has not been explored. The aim of this work was to select GCC+ isolates with antifungal activity to study its effectiveness in a dry-cured ham model system at the environmental conditions reached during the ripening. Forty-five strains of GCC+ were evaluated and the isolate Staphylococcus xylosus Sx8 was selected to assess its efficacy at two different concentrations (106 and 104 cfu/mL) against Penicillium nordicum, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus parasiticus, and Penicillium griseofulvum at 15, 20, and 25 °C. The results showed that the inoculation of 106 cfu/mL of S. xylosus completely inhibited the growth of most fungi. In addition, in the presence of this strain at 104 cfu/mL, a significant reduction in fungal growth and mycotoxins production was observed at the three temperatures studied. In conclusion, S. xylosus Sx8 possesses great potential as a biological agent to control toxigenic moulds in dry-cured meat products.
Highlights
Moulds become the predominant population on the surface of dry-cured meat products due to their ability to adapt to the environmental conditions reached during their ripening [1,2,3]
Ochratoxin A (OTA) is the most prevalent mycotoxin in meat products [7]. It can be produced by several moulds species such as Aspergillus westerdijkiae, Penicillium verrucosum, and Penicillium nordicum [8,9,10], P. nordicum is the most common ochratoxigenic mould isolated from dry-cured meats [8,11]
The mycotoxin-producing moulds were obtained from different culture collections: P. nordicum FHSCC 15 (Pn15) from the Food Hygiene and Safety Culture Collection at the University of Extremadura (Cáceres, Spain); P. nordicum CBS 323.92 (Pn92), and A. flavus CBS 573.65 (Af65) from the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (Utrecht, Netherland); P. nordicum BFE 856 (Pn856) from the Federal Research Centre for Nutrition and Food (Kulmbach, Germany); A. parasiticus CECT 2681 (Ap2681) and P. griseofulvum CECT 2919 (Pg2919) from the Spanish Type Culture Collection (Valencia, Spain); P. griseofulvum IBT 14319 (Pg14319) from the Type Culture Collection of the Department of Biotechnology from the Technical University of Denmark, and A. westerdijkiae 6B (Aw6B) was kindly supplied by Dr Paula Rodrigues from the Mountain Research Centre, Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal)
Summary
Moulds become the predominant population on the surface of dry-cured meat products due to their ability to adapt to the environmental conditions reached during their ripening [1,2,3]. These microorganisms significantly contribute to the development of the characteristic sensorial attributes of these foods [4,5]. Ochratoxin A (OTA) is the most prevalent mycotoxin in meat products [7] It can be produced by several moulds species such as Aspergillus westerdijkiae, Penicillium verrucosum, and Penicillium nordicum [8,9,10], P. nordicum is the most common ochratoxigenic mould isolated from dry-cured meats [8,11]. The presence of other mycotoxins in dry-cured ham such as aflatoxins (AFs) [14,15,16,17] and cyclopiazonic acid (CPA) [18] has been reported
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