Contamination of barley seeds with Fusarium species and their toxins in Spain: an integrated approach.

Fusarium is a globally distributed fungal genus that includes different species pathogenic to cereals among others crops. Some of these Fusarium species can also produce toxic compounds towards animals and humans. In this work, the presence of the most important Fusarium toxins was determined in barley seeds from Spain, sampled according to European Union requirements. The results obtained were compared with the presence of mycotoxigenic species considered responsible for their synthesis by using species-specific polymerase chain reaction protocols. Fumonisins B(1) and B(2), zearalenone, trichothecenes type A (T-2 and HT-2) and trichothecenes type B (deoxynivalenol and nivalenol) were analy…

Conventional and Real-Time PCR Assays for Detection and Quantification of the Expression of Fumonisin Biosynthetic Genefum5 inFusarium verticillioides

Fumonisin production by Gibberella fujikuroi strains fromPinus species

Abstract Fumonisins are important mycotoxins basically produced by strains from the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex (with anamorphs in Fusarium genus) which contaminate food and feed products representing a risk to human and animal health. In this work, we report for the first time the fumonisin production of Fusarium moniliforme Sheldon strains associated to edible pine nuts of Pinus pinea. P. pinea is an important and widely distributed Pinus species in the Mediterranean area where their pine nuts are consumed raw or slightly processed in diverse food products. In this work, characterization and further identification of those strains were performed by polymerase chain reaction-restr…

Characterization ofFusarium verticillioides strains by PCR-RFLP analysis of the intergenic spacer region of the rDNA

Thirty-three Fusarium verticillioides strains from diverse origins and hosts have been analysed for fumonisin production and characterized in order (i) to detect the variability present in this species and (ii) to discriminate among isolates. The method used was a combination of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) generated by restriction endonucleases applied to the IGS region (intergenic spacer of rDNA). All the F. verticillioides strains associated with crops produced fumonisins B1 and B2 except those isolated from banana. Analysis of the IGS region by PCR-RFLP proved to be useful to detect variability within F. verticillioides and allowed …

Real-Time RT-PCR assay to quantify the expression of fum1 and fum19 genes from the Fumonisin-producing Fusarium verticillioides

Fumonisins are a group of mycotoxins produced by Fusarium species of the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex that contaminate food and feed products, and represent a risk for human and animal health. In this work, we have developed a specific real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assay to quantify the level of expression of two genes of the fumonisin biosynthetic cluster in F. verticillioides: fum1 (that encodes a polyketide synthase enzyme) and the ABC transporter encoding gene fum19. The level of expression of both genes was compared with the amount of fumonisin B(1) (FB(1)), measured by HPLC, produced by several strains of F. verticillioides in liquid culture. The results indicat…