DETECTION OF PENICILLIUM SPECIES IN COMPLEX FOOD SAMPLES USING THE POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION

Rapid identification of filamentous fungi is becoming increasingly imp ortant in food mycology both for monitoring the production process and for the identification of food spoilers. This paper describes the dev elopment and trial of two specific PCR primer sets. A 336 bp fragment from species belonging to Penicillium subgenus Penicillium was amplifi ed by the primers ITS 212d and ITS 549. The other primer set, ITS 183 and ITS 401 specifically identified two species, Penicillium roquefort i and P. carneum, both known as spoilers in the bread industry, by amp lification of a 300 bp fragment. The future perspectives of PCR based identification of filamentous fungi in food are discussed. (C) 1997 El sevier Science B.V.