Abstract
Storage fruit at suboptimal conditions would promote the fungal growth and perhaps the production of mycotoxin which probably transfer to apple products such as apple juice and other apple products, such as purees and baby food is consumed by infants which can be dangerous for human consumption. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate a samples of fresh and dry apples including (40) fresh apple and (20) dry apple were collected from different markets in Jeddah governorate, Saudi Arabia. In this investigation, mycoflore from apple samples were isolate the by using Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium at a temperature of 28 C. The results of this study include the isolation and molecular identification of 5 genera and 39 different species which were identified as Penicillium, Aspergillus, Rhizopus, Alternaria, and Fusarium. The most dominant genera was Penicillium sp. Then we used thin layer chromatography (TLC) to test about 50 Penicillium isolates for their ability to produce patulin. Moreover, P. expansum and P. chrysogenum were found to be toxigenic fungi with higher probability to produce and secrete patulin. In conclusion, fresh or dried apples may be contaminated by certain strains of fungi that produced toxins, specially patulin which cause may human health problems.