NDLI: On the safety of Aspergillus niger

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Schuster, E. Dunn Coleman, N. Frisvad, J. van Dijck, P.
Copyright Year	2002
Abstract	Aspergillus niger is one of the most important microorganisms used in biotechnology. It has been in use already for many decades to produce extracellular (food) enzymes and citric acid. In fact, citric acid and many A. niger enzymes are considered GRAS by the United States Food and Drug Administration. In addition, A. niger is used for biotransformations and waste treatment. In the last two decades, A. niger has been developed as an important transformation host to over-express food enzymes. Being pre-dated by older names, the name A. niger has been conserved for economical and information retrieval reasons and there is a taxonomical consensus based on molecular data that the only other common species closely related to A. niger in the Aspergillus series Nigri is A. tubingensis. A. niger, like other filamentous fungi, should be treated carefully to avoid the formation of spore dust. However, compared with other filamentous fungi, it does not stand out as a particular problem concerning allergy or mycopathology. A few medical cases, e.g. lung infections, have been reported, but always in severely immunocompromised patients. In tropical areas, ear infections (otomycosis) do occur due to A. niger invasion of the outer ear canal but this may be caused by mechanical damage of the skin barrier. A. niger strains produce a series of secondary metabolites, but it is only ochratoxin A that can be regarded as a mycotoxin in the strict sense of the word. Only 3–10% of the strains examined for ochratoxin A production have tested positive under favourable conditions. New and unknown isolates should be checked for ochratoxin A production before they are developed as production organisms. It is concluded, with these restrictions, that A. niger is a safe production organism.
Starting Page	426
Ending Page	435
Page Count	10
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01757598
Journal	Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
Volume Number	59
Issue Number	4-5
e-ISSN	14320614
Language	English
Publisher	Springer-Verlag
Publisher Date	2002-06-25
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Medicine Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Biotechnology

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