title: Populations of fungi and bacteria associated with samples of stored rice in Korea.
abstract: Stored rice was collected from rice processing complexes of National Agricultural Cooperative Federation of 11 regions in Korea to evaluate the occurrence of fungi and bacteria and to identify the predominant fungi and bacteria to the genus levels. Most rice samples generally produced the higher levels of fungi and bacteria than white rice. The occurrence of fungi and bacteria varied in various locations of Korea. Among fungi observed, Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp. were dominant in the samples and Aspergillus spp. were observed more frequently than Penicillium spp. Predominant bacteria from rice and white rice samples tentatively belonged to the Genus Bacillus, Pectobacterium, Pantoea, and Microbacterium according to BIOLOG and FAME analyses. The results of this study showed that rice in Korea was contaminated in a relatively high level by two dominant storage fungi such as Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp. In addition, occurrence of mycotoxins in rice by the fungi could be possible and thus it is necessary to control the storage fungi.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biotechnology, College of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul 136-713, Korea.
authors.forename: Ji Yeon
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.forename: Sam Nyu
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Jee
authors.forename: Youngwoo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nam
authors.forename: Hojoung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Mun Il
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Ryoo
authors.forename: Ki Deok
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: Aspergillus; Penicillium; Rice; Storage bacteria; Storage fungi