Antimould microbial and plant metabolites with potential use in intelligent food packaging

Moulds food infestation is a heavy dangerous problem for human health and also could generate heavy economic losses. The intelligent packaging using eco-friendly biodegradable biofilm incorporating bioactive natural safe compounds represents a new frontier. This manuscript reports the inhibitory activity of 12 bacterial, fungal and plant metabolites against Penicillium roqueforti and Aspergillus niger. Among them α-costic acid and ungeremine (3 and 12) are the most promising as potential biofungicide against both fungal strains. They inhibited fungal growth by more than 60% respect to the control at 72 h and this activity persisted also at 96 h. Ungeremine showed MIC90 lower than 0.003 mg/mL after 48 h of incubation and of 0.025 mg/mL at 72 h against P. roqueforti. The MIC90 value for A. niger was 0.2 mg/mL at 48 h for both compounds. The α-costic acid showed generally MIC values at 48 and 72 h higher than ungeremine.