Malt extract agar

After incubation, incidence of infected with black aspergilli berries and distribution of most dominant grape mycoflora at genus level, were recorded. A representative number from the black aspergilli from every vineyard were isolated from DRBC and sub-cultured on Malt Extract Agar (MEA, LabM) and Czapek Dox Agar (CD, Oxoid) for further identification at species level. The initial identification of the different strains of Aspergillus section Nigri was performed using macroscopic and microscopic morphological criteria in accordance with appropriate keys [29] (link), [43] , [44] . The reference strains of A. carbonarius, A. niger, A. tubingensis, A. ochraceus and A. westerdijkiae were kindly provided by Prof. N. Magan from the Mycology Group of Cranfield University. The isolates were preserved at −80°C in the culture collection of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition of the Agricultural University of Athens, Greece.

Brain heart infusion (BHI) broth, malt extract agar, and Ringer’s solution were obtained from LABM (Heywood, UK). Ciproxin was obtained from Oxoid Ltd. (Basingstoke, UK) and amphotericin B from Mast Group Ltd. (Merseyside, UK). Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium (DMEM), DMEM high glucose, RPMI media, and low melting agarose were purchased from Gibco^® (Gaithersburg, MD, USA). Fetal bovine serum (FBS), trypsin, penicillin/streptomycin, trypan blue 0.5%, and phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) were purchased from Biosera (Boussens, France). Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and propidium iodide were purchased from Biotium (Hayward, CA, USA), while hydrogen peroxide, ABTS, potassium persulfate, ascorbic acid, sulforhodamine B (SRB), Trizma base, and etoposide were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA). TrichloroAcetic acid (TCA) was obtained from MP Biomedicals (Santa Ana, CA, USA). Acetic acid and ethanol were purchased from Scharlau (Barcelona, Spain) and DPPH from Calbiochem^® (Darmstadt, Germany).

Sterile tryptone soy broth (TSB), tryptone soy agar (TSA), malt extract broth (MEB) and malt extract agar (MEA) were obtained from Lab M, Lancashire, UK, and prepared according to manufacturer’s recommendations. Overnight culture of P. aeruginosa (NCIB 8295) was prepared by aseptically inoculating 50 mL of sterile TSB and incubating overnight in an orbital shaker at 37 °C. Similarly, overnight cultures of S. aureus (NCIB 6571) in TSB and C. albicans (NCYC 854) in MEB were also similarly prepared.