Meios de cultura alternativos para fungos utilizando diferentes substratos, especialmente de mandioca (manihot esculenta).

Abstract

The filamentous fungi are an important group of microorganisms, being not only one of the most numerous among the microorganisms due to their potential in biotechnological processes such as the production of antibiotics, enzymes, vitamins and others. The fungi are also plant, animals and human pathogens, acting sometimes as toxins producers. The fungal growth is a routine practice at microbiological laboratories and the Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium is the most used medium due to be a rich source of starch. However, in some regions of Brazil, the potato production has a quite high cost. For this reason the aiming of the present work was the search for new alternative sources of starch. Thus, initially several tubercles: cassava (Manihot esculenta), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), carrot (Daucus carota), ginger (Zingiber officinale) and yam (Dioscorea alata) were tested as a starch source to fungal growth. The cassava (Manihot esculenta) showed the best results to fungal growth. This species is a tropical plant with a great commercial importance to Brazil, Africa and other parts of the world. In brazilian north and northeast regions, the cassava is hugely cultivated by a low cost. After the first screening, it was optimized the utilization of Cassava Dextrose Agar (CDA) media. Many fungal species of biotecnological importance (Beauveria bassiana, Aspergillus niger, Penicillium sp., Fusarium sp., Phanerochaete chrysosporium) were evaluated to growth, development sporulation and hyphal formation. The BDA media was used as a control. The present results demonstrated a high efficiency of MDA to fungal growth. However, in MDA was observed a reduction of fungal sporulation comparing with BDA. Finally, both media BDA and MDA, were used to the endophytic fungal isolation from: guarana (Paullinia cupana) and olives (Olea europea). The fungal identification demonstrated that isolates varied according to host plant. The fungal diversity was higher in guaraná being higher using the MDA in comparison with the BDA media. To both media, it was obtained a low number of isolated fungi from O. europea. The present results clearly demonstrated that the cassava is an feasible important starch source, being a potential alternative media, mainly in tropical countries