Evaluation of ability of ferulic acid to control growth and fumonisin production of Fusarium verticillioides and Fusarium proliferatum on maize based media.

FERROCHIO L.V.; CENDOYA E.; FARNOCHI M. C.; MASSAD W; RAMIREZ M.L.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FOOD MICROBIOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2013 vol. 167 p. 215 - 220

0168-1605

The aimof this study was to evaluate the efficacy of ferulic acid (1, 10, 20 and 25 mM) at different water activity (aw) values (0.99, 0.98, 0.96 and 0.93) at 25 °C on growth and fumonisin production by Fusarium verticillioides and Fusariumproliferatumonmaize basedmedia. For both Fusariumspecies, the lag phase significantly decreased p ≤ 0.001), and the growth rates increased (p ≤ 0.001) at the lowest ferulic acid concentration used (1 mM), regardless of the aw. However, high doses of ferulic acid (10 to 25 mM) significantly reduced (p ≤ 0.001) the growth rate of both Fusarium species, regardless of the aw. In general, growth rate inhibition increased as ferulic acid doses increased and asmedia aw decreased. Fumonisin production profiles of both Fusariumspecies showed that low ferulic acid concentrations (1?10 mM) significantly increased (p ≤ 0.001) toxin production, regardless of the aw. High doses of ferulic acid (20?25 mM) reduced fumonisin production, in comparisonwith the controls,by both Fusarium species but theywere not statistically significant inmost cases. The results showthat the use of ferulic acid as a post-harvest strategy to reduce mycotoxin accumulation on maize needs to be discussed.