Natural fruit extracts as non-toxic fluorescent dyes for staining fungal chlamydospores

Abstract

Currently, most synthetic dyes utilized for fungal fluorescent staining are toxic, carcinogenic, or harmful to animals, humans, and the environment. This study proposes non-toxic extracts of fruits from the genera Rhamnus, Ribes, Sambucus, Viburnum, Sorbus and Beta as simple, safe, and ecological alternatives to chemical fluorescent dye for efficient staining of Fusarium chlamydospore cells using, as test strains, five different pathogenic Fusarium species.