Characterizing the Fungal Microbiome in Date (Phoenix dactylifera) Fruit Pulp and Peel from Early Development to Harvest.

ABSTRACT: Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is considered to be a highly important food crop in several African and Middle Eastern countries due to its nutritional value and health-promoting properties. Microbial contamination of dates has been of concern to consumers, but very few works have analyzed in detail the microbial load of the different parts of date fruit. In the present work, we characterized the fungal communities of date fruit using a metagenomic approach, analyzing the data for differences between microbial populations residing in the pulp and peel of "Medjool" dates at the different stages of fruit development. The results revealed that Penicillium, Cladosporium, Aspergillus, and Alternaria were the most abundant genera in both parts of the fruit, however, the distribution of taxa amon

SUBMITTER: Piombo E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7284588 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature