On smallholder farms in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal, fungi of the Fusarium graminearum clade cause Gibberella ear rot of maize and contamination with the 8-ketotrichothecenes nivalenol and deoxynivalenol. Previous DNA marker analyses of the F. graminearum clade from maize in Nepal found a high level of genetic diversity but were limited in detail or scope. The present stud...

Hundred Fusarium culmorum strains, isolated from freshly harvested maize grain samples from Southern parts of India, were incubated in czapek-dox medium and analyzed for trichothecene (DON/NIV) production. The mPCR assay was standardized targeting trichothecene metabolic pathway genes viz., Tri6, Tri7, Tri13 for detection of trichothecene (DON/NIV) chemotypes and rDNA gene for specific detectio...

Fusarium trichothecenes are fungal toxins that cause disease on infected plants and, more importantly, health problems for humans and animals that consume infected fruits or vegetables. Unfortunately, there are few methods for controlling mycotoxin production by fungal pathogens. In this study, we isolated and characterized sixteen Fusarium strains from naturally infected potato plants in the f...

The effect of changes in temperature/water activity (a(w)) on growth, deoxynivalenol (DON) production and trichothecene gene cluster expression (18 genes) for strains of Fusarium culmorum and Fusarium graminearum was studied. The expression data for six key transcription genes (TRI4, TRI5, TRI6, TRI10, TRI12 and TRI13) were analysed using multiple regression analyses to model the relationship b...

There are 4 P450 oxygenases involved in the biosynthesis of T-2 toxin in Fusarium sporotrichioides. Exactly how these enzymes react to antimicrobial plant defense compounds is unknown. Xanthotoxin (8-methoxypsoralen) is a phototoxic furanocoumarin that acts as a P450 oxygenase inhibitor. The current study shows that the addition of concentrations of 1.0 mmol/L or less of xanthotoxin to liquid c...