Plastic production has been increasing over the last century, and is still growing globally. Plastic debris accumulation in marine and coastal areas causes enormous damage to biota. In addition, those materials can be vectors of potentially dangerous, biological contaminants such as bacteria, microalgae and fungi. In this study species-specific DNA-based markers developed in silico for the pathogenic fungus Trichophyton mentagrophytes and taken from the literature for Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Cryptococcus neoformans were employed to assess fungi occurrence in litter plastic bottles found in public beaches. Fungi were tested from environmental samples along the coast of Asturias region (Spain) using PCR amplification method based on universal markers ITS1 – ITS4, then with species-specific markers. From 26 seawater, 13 sand and 27 plastic bottle samples from 13 beaches, results pointed out that: - newly designed T. mentagrophytes-specific marker is specific and sensitive enough to detect this pathogen from eDNA; - different species of fungal pathogens can be found inside plastic bottles occurring in marine litter; - occurrence of pathogenic fungi is significantly correlated with the amount of plastic bottles found on beach litter.
Promotor(s) & Supervisor: Eva García Vázquez, Alba Ardura
Thesis Institute: University of Oviedo
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