Weaving Exhibited at Ege University Ethnography Museum Determination and Typing of Mycobiota in Materials and Environmental Air
Project no. 23126 · Status: Kapanmış · 2021
Summary
<p>The Ethnography Museum exhibits historical artifacts that describe the formation process of a country's culture, its history, its relationship with other countries, the social and economic situations of its community, its customs and traditions, and serve as a bridge between the past and the present and a compass for the future.</p><p>The exhibited objects are made of raw materials such as textiles, metal, clay and wood. From the moment they are formed, these objects begin to deteriorate, that is, to age, due to physical, chemical and biological factors. The task of museums is to prolong this conservation period and keep its impact to a minimum. For this, the artifacts and the museum must be inspected at regular intervals.</p><p>Among the ethnographic artifacts, textile artifacts are one of the most susceptible to degradation. The most important factor that causes deterioration of historical artifacts is the biological factor of microfungi. Microfungi are strong saprophytic organisms that are characterized by physiological structures and strong enzymatic activities. Microfungi pose a serious threat to woven artifacts, as artifacts woven from natural resources are a food source for microfungi.</p><p>In order to preserve these artifacts and take preventive actions, many tasks must be performed, such as, identifying and classifying of microfungi on the artifacts and in the air, controlling temperature and relative humidity, and controlling air flow.</p><p>In this study, samples were taken to determine the mycobiota of the works exhibited in the Ege University Ethnography Museum, the air mycobiota inside the glass showcases where the works were exhibited, and in the exhibition halls as well as the museum staff room, then phenotypic identification of the samples was carried out. As a result, 250 different microfungal species were detected, and as a result of the cellulase and protease activity screening, 22 with highly cellulase positive and 11 with moderately and slightly protease positive microfungi were isolated. Genotypic identification of 11 cellulase and protease positive isolates was performed by PCR using ITS1 and ITS4 primers, which are universal primers specific to the ITS gene region, which is a conserved gene region. The results obtained by sending the PCR products to the sequence analysis service were evaluated using Finch TV (Blast) and ApE program. Species determination was made by comparing nucleotide sequences and examining their similarities on the GenBank web page https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi (NCBI).</p>