Classification of Penicillium fungi
Special Symposium - Innovations in Food Technology (LMC Congress)
Innovations in Food Technology - Poster Session (Food - P2)
Keywords: objective classification, penicillium
Penicillium is one of the most important fungal genera, as some of its species produce important drugs (e.g. penicillin) and some of its species are used in food fermentation, e.g. cheeses and mould fermented salami. All fungal species produce different mycotoxins and the methods for visual identification used are subjective [Samson & Frisvad 1993, Christensen et al. 1994]. Objective identification methods are therefore highly desirable [Dörge et al. 2000, Hansen et al., 2003]. We propose an objective method for classification of Penicillium fungi.
In order to obtain an objective identification digital image analysis has been considered. Multi-spectral images of 18 spectra, both visible and NIR have been acquired. Three species of the fungal genus Penicillium are subject to classification: P. melanoconidium, P. polonium, and P. venetum. The three species have been inoculated on three different growth substrates. Multivariate statistics have been used to classify the species, as well as to determine which growth substrates perform best with respect to the classification.
References
Christensen, M., Miller, S.L. and Tuthill, D. 1994. Color standards – a review and evaluation in relation to Penicillium taxonomy. Mycol. Res. 98: 635-644.
Dörge, T., Frisvad, J.C. and Carstensen, J.M. 2000. Direct identification of pure Penicillium species using image analysis. J. Microbiol. Meth. 41: 121-133.
Hansen, M. E., Lund, F. and Carstensen, J. M. 2003. ”Visual clone identification of Penicillium commune isolates”. Journal of Microbiological Methods, 52, pp. 221–229.
Samson, R.A. and Frisvad, J.C. 1993. New taxonomic approaches for identification of food-borne fungi. Int. Biodegr. Biodet. 32: 99-116.
Presented Thursday 20, 13:30 to 14:40, in session Innovations in Food Technology - Poster Session (Food - P2).
