Diversity of fungi in bottled water in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Fuad Ameen, Alhanouf Albejad, Rukaia Gashgari, S. Murialdo
and A. Al-Sabri
ABSTRACT
The occurrence of fungi in drinking water systems has received increased attention over recent
decades and fungi are now generally accepted as drinking water system contaminants. However,
fungal contamination of bottled water has received little attention. Forty unopened bottled water
samples, of different trademarks, were collected from various localities in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia
and analyzed for fungal contamination: (1) immediately after opening the bottles; and (2) after closing
and storing them for 180 and 365 days. The fungal species were identified under a compound
microscope followed by molecular sequencing. At least one fungal species were found in 58% of the
bottles. In total, 18 fungal species belonging to 11 fungal genera were identified. Rhizopus nigricans
and seven different species of Aspergillus were found to frequently contaminate the bottled water
samples. Penicillium sp. were found in one sample. The 180 days storage of opened and reclosed
bottles did not substantially affect the abundance of fungi or the species found. Some of the fungi
identified may be pathogenic and the contamination of fungi in bottled water should be considered
during the processing of water.
Fuad Ameen (corresponding author)
A. Al-Sabri
Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of
Science,
King Saud University,
Riyadh 11451,
Saudi Arabia
E-mail: fuadameen@ksu.edu.sa
Alhanouf Albejad
Rukaia Gashgari
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science,
King Abdulaziz University,
Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia
S. Murialdo
Biochemical Engineering Group (GIB), Food and
Chemical Engineering Department, Engineering
Faculty,
Mar del Plata National University (UNMdP),
J B Justo 4302, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Key words | bottled water, contamination, drinking water, fungi, water
INTRODUCTION
Fungi are ubiquitous in nature and are able to survive and
grow in water sources, including drinking water. Fungi
were observed to survive through the drinking water disin-
fection process in the 1980s (Niemi et al. ). Recently,
potentially pathogenic species have frequently been isolated
from drinking water systems (Paterson & Lima ; Pater-
son et al. ; Hageskal et al. ; Oliveira et al. ; Babič
et al. ; Hurtado-McCormick et al. ). More than half
(66%) of the fungal species identified in different drinking
water sources in Brazil were considered potential pathogens
(Oliveira et al. ). An emerging pathogen, Aspergillus
calidoustus, has been frequently isolated from Norwegian
water systems (Hageskal et al. ). Several fungal species
found in drinking waters are known to cause infectious dis-
eases (Paterson & Lima ; Paterson et al. ) but no
report about any acute disease caused by fungal contami-
nation in purified drinking water was found in a recent
review (Hageskal et al. ). However, health effects are
not fully understood and several articles have regarded
fungal contamination as a possibly underestimated problem
in drinking water distribution systems (Hageskal et al. ;
; ; Kanzler et al. ; Pereira et al. ; ;
Siqueira et al. ; Al-gabr et al. ; Skaar & Hageskal
). Also a recent review of Babič et al. () concludes
that harmful health effects of pathogenic fungi are possible
especially for immunocompromised people. In addition to
health effects, fungal contamination may also be responsible
for the mycotoxins that possibly cause organoleptic defects
and allergenic reactions (Mata et al. ; Skaar & Hageskal
; Bai et al. ).
The use of bottled water, as a safe substitute for tap
water, has increased in the past few decades, but the poss-
ible microbial contamination of bottled water has been
studied very little. It has been reported that bottled water
1664 © IWA Publishing 2018 Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | 18.5 | 2018
doi: 10.2166/ws.2017.227
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