Abstract
A lot of countries around the world are seeking to strategic storage of large quantities of wheat grain in giant silos for use in the food industry for humans, animals and poultry. Length of the period of transport and storage, which can be exposed to amounts of moisture qualifies them to serious injury of many types of dangerous fungi. Objectives of this study were to identify fungi mounted on wheat grain stored in the main silo in the city of Sakaka, Saudi Arabia and to study the ability of these fungal spores and conidia to cause damage to people exposed to inhalation of large quantities of the dust of wheat grain in causing lyses of human red blood cells. Aspergillus was consistently the most frequent genus (100% of places) and contributed by A. flavus and A. niger were of high frequency (20 places out of 20) contributing 19.3% and 19% (total 38.3%) of the total count, respectively. Penicillum was recovered from 18 samples matching 36.5% of total count fungal isolates. It was represented by P frequentans and P islandicum sharing 18.5% and 18%, respectively. Ulocladium atruni gave 15.7% of the total count but with low occurrence. Circinella umbellata and Gliocladium sp. were less frequently isolated representing 7.4% and 2.1% of total count. The tested 7 fungi proved the ability to break down human red blood cells but with varying degrees in varying significant intensity.