Research Article Inhibitory Effect of Natural Phenolic Compounds on Aspergillus parasiticus Growth Romina P. Pizzolitto, 1 Carla L. Barberis, 2 José S. Dambolena, 1 Jimena M. Herrera, 1 María P. Zunino, 1 Carina E. Magnoli, 2 Héctor R. Rubinstein, 3 Julio A. Zygadlo, 1 and Ana M. Dalcero 2 1 Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biolog´ıa Vegetal (IMBiV-CONICET), Universidad Nacional de C´ ordoba, ICTA, Avenida V´ elez Sarsfield 1611, X5016GCA C´ ordoba, Argentina 2 Departamento de Microbiolog´ıa e Inmunolog´ıa, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas F´ısico-Qu´ımicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de R´ıo Cuarto, Ruta 36 Km 601, X5804BY R´ıo Cuarto, C´ ordoba, Argentina 3 Centro de Investigaciones en Bioqu´ımica Cl´ınica e Inmunolog´ıa (CIBICI-CONICET), Departamento de Bioqu´ımica Cl´ınica, Facultad de Ciencias Qu´ımicas, Universidad Nacional de C´ ordoba, Haya de la Torre y Medina Allende, X5016GCA C´ ordoba, Argentina Correspondence should be addressed to Julio A. Zygadlo; jzygadlo@efn.uncor.edu Received 10 November 2014; Accepted 9 March 2015 Academic Editor: Serkos A. Haroutounian Copyright © 2015 Romina P. Pizzolitto et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Considering the impact of Aspergillus species on crops, it appears to be highly desirable to apply strategies to prevent their growth, as well as to eliminate or reduce their presence in food products. For this reason, the aims of this investigation were to evaluate the effects of ten natural phenolic compounds on the Aspergillus parasiticus growth and to determine which physicochemical properties are involved in the antifungal activity. According to the results of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of the individual compounds, isoeugenol, carvacrol, and thymol were the most active phenolic components (1.26 mM, 1.47 mM, and 1.50 mM, resp.), followed by eugenol (2.23 mM). On the other hand, creosol, p-cresol, o-cresol, m-cresol, vanillin, and phenol had no effects on fungal development. Logarithm of the octanol/water partition coefficient (log P), refractivity index (RI), and molar volume (MV) were demonstrated to be the descriptors that best explained the antifungal activity correlated to lipophilicity, reactivity of the components, and steric aspect. ese findings make an important contribution to the search for new compounds with antifungal activity. 1. Introduction Crops are susceptible to fungal growth, with the economic impact of this contamination occurring at all levels of agricul- tural commodities: in the field and during storage at various commercial stages, including both products and by-products. Besides the economic losses due to the deterioration of foods, many of the phytopathogenic fungi produce secondary metabolites, such as mycotoxins that could have harmful effects on the consumers’ health. is causes also a reduction in the quality of foods and feeds. In terms of agricultural safety, Aspergillus section flavi are one of the most signifi- cant fungal genera because they contaminate crops during pre- or postharvest periods. Aspergillus parasiticus is one of the most important species of this section since some isolates of this species are able to produce carcinogenic secondary metabolites, aflatoxins, resulting in an accumulation of this mycotoxin in crops [1, 2]. Due to the negative effect of fungal growth, and its metabolites, on agricultural products and on animal and human health, several preservation methods have been used in order to prevent its development and also to extend the shelf-life of foods. e use of synthetic fungicides is not suitable because of their side effects on human and animal health, the environmental pollution, and the development of fungicide resistant strains [3]. Given these undesirable effects and considering the negative impact of Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Chemistry Volume 2015, Article ID 547925, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/547925