Abstract
Natural products, like phenolic compounds from plant sources, exhibited antifungal activity and other biological activities. The current work aimed at studying the effect of phenolic compounds produced via enzymatic extraction from garden cress seed meal on some aflatoxins producing fungi isolated from the Eggplant fruits. In this elucidation, the chemical composition, minerals content and protein isolate of garden cress meal were investigated. Various enzymes (protease, cellulase, amyloglucosidase and their mixture) were used in the extraction of phenolic compounds with different concentrations. The antioxidant activities of all phenolic extracts were assisted. The polyphenolic compounds were defined by HPLC. Amino acid profile of the prepared protein isolate was also determined. On the other hand, six samples of Eggplant (10 of each) from two different locations were analyzed for mycological examination and aflatoxins association. The antifungal activity of phenolic extracts was measured by linear growth method of aflatoxigenic fungi. The results showed that a mixture of protease, cellulase, and amyloglucosidase enzymes with equal ratios exhibited major phenolic compounds (15.97mg/g) and also high antioxidant activities. The enzymatic phenolic extracts with different concentrations (10 and 20%) had a significant antifungal activity against aflatoxigenic fungi and other tested fungi. The highest growth inhibition of aflatoxigenic fungi was detected with A. parasiticus (55.82% at 20% conc.), while A. flavus detected less growth inhibition which recorded 40.54% at 20% conc. It could be concluded that garden cress phenolic extract is effective against some aflatoxigenic fungi.