Vladimir Tikhonov, Evgeniya Stepnova, Sergey Lopatin, Valery Varlamov, Alla Ilyina and Igor Yamskov
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, and others

Series: Biotechnology in Agriculture, Industry and Medicine
BISAC: SCI010000

Chitosan has been reported to be a non-toxic, biocompatible antibacterial, antifungal and insecticidal agent. In this work the fungistatic efficacy of a set of low polydispersity chitosans varying in molecular weight from 1.2 to 90.0 kDa towards the filamentous palm parasitic fungus Penicillium vermoesenii has been studied in vitro. It has been shown for the first time that the activity of chitosan against the fungus has unusual bell-like dependence on chitosan molecular weight so that chitosans having the molecular weight between 5÷10 kDa possess the highest fungistatic activity while chitosans with both lower and higher molecular weights are significantly less active. (Imprint: Nova Biomedical)