In South Africa, the main causal organisms of Fusarium head blight (FHB) are Gibberella zeae (=Fusarium graminearum), F. culmorum and F. crookwellense. Fusarium graminearum and F. culmorum are associated with warmer regions, and F. crookwellense with cooler regions. Sporadic FHB outbreaks occur principally in the irrigation areas of the country. In favourable years significant damage is caused....

Spring barley is grown on about half of the Norwegian cereal area. The rest of the area is equally divided between wheat and oats. Most years the domestic production provides 70%-80% of the domestic market for bread wheat. Barley and oats are mainly grown for animal feed. During the years 2008-2012, severe epidemics of Fusarium head blight have led to increased mycotoxin contamination of cereal...

Fusarium is a type of mould capable of producing several diseases in cereals. Infection is a worldwide problem associated with yield losses and the accumulation of toxic secondary metabolites, mycotoxins, which are harmful to both humans and animals. F. graminearum, F. culmorum, F. avenaceum, F. poae, and F. tricinctum, including corresponding mycotoxins were quantified in wheat samples from 6 ...

The increasing usage of chemicals for plant protection in recent years has become a serious problem. One the possible solutions is use beneficial microorganisms instead synthetic fungicides, which will contribute to environment and human health. Since fungi Aspergillus flavus Fusarium graminearum are most important pathogens that cause maize diseases produce mycotoxins, potential Trichoderma ha...

Sexual spores (ascospores) of Fusarium graminearum, a homothallic ascomycetous fungus, are believed to be the primary inocula for epidemics of the diseases caused by this species in cereal crops. Based on the light requirement for the formation of fruiting bodies (perithecia) of F. graminearum under laboratory conditions, we explored whether photoreceptors play an important role in sexual devel...

Eukaryotic cell cycle involves a number of protein kinases important for the onset and progression through mitosis, most of which are well characterized in the budding and fission yeasts and conserved in other fungi. However, unlike the model yeast and filamentous fungi that have a single Cdc2 essential for cell cycle progression, the wheat scab fungus Fusarium graminearum contains two CDC2 ort...

The Fusarium graminearum species complex (FGSC) is a group of mycotoxigenic fungi that are the primary cause of Fusarium head blight (FHB) of wheat worldwide. The distribution, frequency of occurrence, and genetic diversity of FGSC species in cereal crops in South America is not well understood compared to some regions of Asia, Europe and North America. Therefore, we examined the frequency and ...

Arginine methylation of non-histone proteins by protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT) has been shown to be important for various biological processes from yeast to human. Although PRMT genes are well conserved in fungi, none of them have been functionally characterized in plant pathogenic ascomycetes. In this study, we identified and characterized all of the four predicted PRMT genes in Fus...

The cereal pathogen Fusarium graminearum is the primary cause of Fusarium head blight (FHB) and a significant threat to food safety and crop production. To elucidate population structure and identify genomic targets of selection within major FHB pathogen populations in North America we sequenced the genomes of 60 diverse F. graminearum isolates. We also assembled the first pan-genome for F. gra...

As in other eukaryotes, protein kinases play major regulatory roles in filamentous fungi. Although the genomes of many plant pathogenic fungi have been sequenced, systematic characterization of their kinomes has not been reported. The wheat scab fungus Fusarium graminearum has 116 protein kinases (PK) genes. Although twenty of them appeared to be essential, we generated deletion mutants for the...