Morphological identification of foodborne pathogens colonizing rice grains in South Asia

The aim of this study was to identify foodborne pathogens (mainly aspergillus) colonizing rice grains using cultural and microscopic methods. Four differential media were used for differentiation of five Aspergillus colonizing rice grains comparing with standard cultures. The authors studied macroscopic and microscopic characteristics for identification of 110 isolates of Aspergillus isolated from 65 rice grain samples collected from various countries in South Asia (Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand). According to morphological characters, all these isolates were belonging to Aspergillus flavus (45), A. fumigatus (8), A. ochraceus (7), A. niger (42) and A. tamarii (8). This is the first report on identification of large number of Aspergillus strains isolated from rice grains in South Asia.