MINI-REVIEW
Advances in molecular detection of Aspergillus: an update
M. Z. Abdin
•
Malik M. Ahmad
•
Saleem Javed
Received: 20 February 2009 / Revised: 1 November 2009 / Accepted: 10 March 2010 / Published online: 1 April 2010
Ó Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract Filamentous cosmopolitan fungi of the genus
Aspergillus can be harmful in two ways, directly they can
be opportunistic pathogens causing aspergillosis and indi-
rectly due to aflatoxin production on food products which
can lead to aflatoxicosis. Therefore, a number of methods
have been proposed so far for detection of the fungi with
lowest possible concentration at the earliest. Molecular
methods such as PCR and/or in combination with certain
techniques have been found to be useful for Aspergillus
detection. We discuss here various technologies that have
emerged in recent years and can possibly be used for the
molecular detection of Aspergillus in an efficient way.
These methods like RSIC, C-probe, and inversion probe
with pyrosequencing or direct ss/dsDNA detection
have been used for the identification of fungal or bacterial
pathogens and thus formulate a ‘gold standard’ for
Aspergillus detection.
Keywords Aspergillus Á Molecular detection Á
PCR Á Polymerase chain reaction-enzyme immunoassay Á
DNA fingerprinting Á Microarray technique Á
Retrotransposon insertion-site context typing Á STRAf Á
ELISA
Introduction
Contamination with mycotoxins is a major problem of food
and feeds storage. Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites
produced by filamentous fungi. These toxic extrolites are
not crucial for sustaining the life; instead, it is believed that
they provide a competitive edge over other non-toxigenic
molds and bacteria. Contamination of food and animal
feeds with mycotoxin leads to adversely effect on human
health also and leads to economic losses. Mycotoxins
contaminate approximately 25–50% of the total crops
harvested, and since molds best thrive in tropical regions,
they damage about 80% of the crops. There are about 300
different mycotoxins, but only 20 of them are known to
have toxic effect on human when ingested along with
contaminated food (Konietzny and Greiner 2003; Table 1).
Mycotoxins like Aflatoxins (AF), Ochratoxins (OT),
Zeralenone (ZEN), Trichothecenes, and Fumonisins (F)
are the major mycotoxins influencing the public health
and agriculture. World Health Organization-International
Agency for Research on Cancer has categorized the
mycotoxins according to its carcinogenic nature on
humans. Aflatoxins have been classified as the most car-
cinogenic mycotoxin and placed under Group I type
while OT and F have been placed under Group 2B and
trichothecenes have been kept under non-carcinogenic
category of Group 3 (Hussein and Brasel 2001; WHO–
IARC 1993a, b).
Aflatoxins are produced by a large number of Asper-
gillus species, basically by three phylogenetically distinct
sections. The main producers are A. flavus, A. parasiticus,
A. nomius, A. pseudotamarii, A. parvisclerotigenus, and
A. bombycis of section Flavi. A. ochraceoroseus and
A. rambellii from section Ochraceorosei and Emericella
astellata, E. venezuelensis from section Nidulatans also
Communicated by Axel Brakhage.
M. Z. Abdin Á M. M. Ahmad
Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Science,
Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi 110062, India
S. Javed (&)
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science,
Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi 110062, India
e-mail: saleemjaved70@yahoo.co.in
123
Arch Microbiol (2010) 192:409–425
DOI 10.1007/s00203-010-0563-y