This work was carried out to evaluatethe fungalcontamination of chicken meat products 13 sold in local markets as well as identification of some isolated moulds using PCR 14 technique.Foridentification of the isolated moulds,samples were subjected to 15 mycologicalexaminationusing themorphological (macroscopic and 16 microscopic)characterization.Molecular identification using (ITS) was carried out for 17 isolatedAspergillus and Penicillium species. The average total mould counts in the 18 examined samples ofchickenluncheon, chicken pane and chicken minced meat were 3.1 x 19 102 ± 0.82 x 102, 7.4 x 102 ± 5.4 x 102 and 1.7 x 102 ± 0.16 x 102cfu/gm, respectively. In the 20 examined samples, 9mould genera were identified. The identified mould genera 21 wereAspergillus, Eurotium,Penicillium,Geotrichum,Fusarium,Cladosporium, Mucor, 22 Eupencillium and Acremonium species. The isolated species ofAspergillus parasiticus and 23 Penicillium purpurogenumwere subjected to PCR identification, and were sequenced in 24 bothdirections. Sequences were analysed and aligned by Clustal method using the program 25 of DNAstar (Laser-gene, Wisconsin, USA). |