Characterization of the effects chitosan on the inhition of phytopathogenic fungi

Author(s)

Enio Nazare de Oliveira Junior

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Química
• Defense date: 2006-11-10

Examining board members

Telma Teixeira Franco; Bruno Maria Moerschbacher; Martin Georg Peter; Itamar Soares de Melo; Maria Estela Stenico; Sergio Paulo Campana Filho

• Advisor: Carlos Raimundo Ferreira Grosso; Telma Teixeira Franco

Abstract

In the first step of this work, a literature review concerning antimicrobial activity of chitin, chitosan and their derivatives against different groups of microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeast and fungi was made. Important developments related to applications of chitosan and their derivatives, as an antimicrobial substance against bacteria, fungi and yeasts, hypotheses involved in the antimicrobial activities and effects on storability and quality of fresh vegetables treated with chitosan and its derivatives are described in this present review. The second step of this work, concerns the production of chitosans with different degrees of polymerization (DP) by thermal treatment and chitosans with different degrees of acetylation (FA) by alkaline deacetylation. The third step of this work, concerns the evaluation of antifungal effects of fifteen chitosans with different degrees of polymerization and different degrees of acetylation against four phytopathogenic fungi (Alternaria alternata, Botrytis cinerea, Penicillium expansum and Rhyzopus stolonifer) by using the 96-well microtiter plate and a microplate reader. Antifungal activity of chitosans increased with FA decreasing. Combination effect of chitosan with low FA and high DP showed the highest fungistatic activity against A. alternata and B. cinerea. The results indicated that free amino groups protonated (NH3 +) were an important factor for antifungal effect. The most resistant fungi were Penicillium expansum and Botrytis cinerea and the most sensitive fungi were Alternaria alternata and Rhizopus stolonifer. In the fourth step of this work, it was investigated the effect of chitooligomers in the fungal growth of the same target fungi analyzed in the third step. The results suggested that chitooligomer mixtures of DP 5 to 8, DP 2 to 12 and DP 2 to 11 showed low or no effect on the fungal growth at concentration of 1,000 µg × mL-1. The last step of this work, concerns the morphological changes on hyphae of fungi treated with chitosan. Mycelial aggregation and morphological structural changes as excessive branching, swelling of the cell wall and hyphae size reduction were observed in the micrographs obtained by scanning electron microscopy field emission (AU)