Comparação de metodologias para detecção de fungos em arroz irradiado

Abstract

Monitoring the fungal contamination of rice is essential for ensuring the product quality and safety. Dif- ferent methods have been proposed for assessing the microbiological quality of foods. Two methodologies based direct plating and blotter test were compared for detecting fungi in irradiated polished white rice. For performing the blotter test, the Petri dishes containing three sterile filter paper sheets were moistened with sterile distilled water, and 5 mL of 0.5% water-agar were added onto them. For carrying out the direct plating technique, the rice samples were plated onto DRBC medium. The samples were incubated at 25oC for seven days, and analyzed under a stereomicroscope. The fungi genera found in irradiated rice were: Penicillium, Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Fusarium and Trichoderma, being Penicillium sp. and Aspergillus sp. the mostly predominant, with the prevalence of 5.2% and 5.6% by direct plating and 34.5% and 5.6% by blotter test, respectively. The gamma-ray irradiation significantly decreased the proportions of contaminated grains, being 96.7% by means of direct plating technique and 100% by blotter test. The blotter test showed highest efficiency in fungal genera counting found in rice samples, which evidences that the chosen detec- tion methodology may interfere on quantifying the fungi contaminants in cereals.