Inactivation of fungal contaminants on Korean traditional cashbox by gamma irradiation

• Fungi were isolated from Korean traditional cashbox stored in museum.
• Radiation sensitivity was measured for the isolated strains.
• A low dose of 5 kGy was successfully applied to decontaminate the cashbox.
• This result supports the application radiation at a low dose for decontamination of cultural relics.

In this study, gamma irradiation was applied to decontaminate a Korean cultural artifact, a wooden cashbox stored in local museum. Fungi isolated from the wooden cashbox were identified by 18S rDNA sequencing methods. It was observed that the isolated fungi exhibited high similarity to Aspergillus niger, Penicillium verruculosum, and Trichoderma viride. Each strain was tested for sensitivity to gamma irradiation, and was inactivated by the irradiation at a dose of 5 kGy. The wooden cashbox was thus gamma-irradiated at this dose (5 kGy), and consequently decontaminated. Two months after the irradiation, when the wooden cashbox was retested to detect biological contamination, no fungi were found. Therefore, these results suggest that gamma irradiation at a low dose of 5 kGy can be applied for successful decontamination of wooden artifacts.