Introduction. Consumption of Physalis fruits is quite recent and the
products are poorly known among consumers. This plant has been known for a long time as an
ornamental in Europe, for at least 200 years. Traceability is increasingly becoming
important across the agri-food industry; however, at the present time, the traceability of
this fruit is only documentary. In case of doubt or fraud, no standardized analysis can
determine the geographical origin of the fruits. Materials and methods. In
order to discover the relationship between the fungal communities of the fruit and their
geographical origins, 28S rDNA-PCR-DGGE was used to analyze the variation in fungal
communities in three species of Physalis fruit (Physalis ixocarpa Brot.,
Physalis pruinosa L. and Physalis peruviana L.) from
Egypt, Uganda and Colombia. Results. Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis
(DGGE) fingerprints of 28S ribosomal DNA (28S rDNA) analyzed by multivariate analysis
could distinguish different fruit origins by their fungal communities.
Conclusion. We propose the PCR-DGGE method as a new traceability tool which
provides fruit in general, and Physalis in particular, with a unique barcode for each
country by using 28S rDNA fingerprinting of fungi.