• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.379-386
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• 1998

Deterioration of food is in general caused by the presence of microorganisms and chemical compounds of food itself. There exists antimicrobial compound in the food, however, addition of food antiseptics, additives, or physico-chemical processing is a common practice. The safety of artificial chemical antiseptics became a serious public concern, therefore, new natural antiseptic compounds are in need to be developed. We have isolated a new natural antifungal protein (KBS-B2) from Astragal seed through ammonium sulfate precipitation and column chromatography using FPLC Mono-S and Superose 12HR. The purified protein inhibited growth of Candida albicans, and spore germination of food spoiling fungi such as Aspergillus ochraceus, Penicillium expensum, P. digitatum and Botrytis cineria. Antifungal effect of the KBS-B2 protein could be directly assayed by bioautography overlaying the fungal spores on the electrophoresed acrylamide gel. The comparison of N-terminal amino acid sequences of the KBS-B2 with known antifungal protein revealed that had 50% homology to thaumatin and zeamatin like proteins.