Evaluation of Antifungal Activity of Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) and Plant Products against Human Pathogenic and Food Spoilage Fungi

Present research was aimed at investigating the control of food spoilage fungi by lactic acid bacteria and natural plant extracts. In this experiment a total of twelve bacterial isolates were aseptically isolated from four different food samples such as lemon, buffalo's milk, yakult and sporlac by using serial dilution agar plate technique. At the same time a total of four spoilage fungi was isolated from different spoiled food samples such as spoiled namkeen, tomato and bread namely Aspergillus, Fusarium, Penicillium and Alternaria species. Along with the extracted food spoilage fungi we even used Candida albicans culture which is a human pathogenic fungus to testify our results. Agar well diffusion method was followed for evaluating the antifungal activity of lactic acid bacteria and plant extract against the isolated food spoilage fungi. After this we tested the antifungal susceptibility patterns of food spoilage fungi against four antifungal discs namely Clotrimazole CC (10), Ketoconazole KT (50), Miconazole MIC30 and Nystatin NS (50). The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of three different plant extract that had shown inhibitory effect against the food spoilage fungi was determined against the food spoilage fungi. To conclude the best antifungal effect against the isolated food spoilage fungi was shown by black pepper extract.