Of 199 fungal cultures isolated from some of the common cereals collected from different parts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, 70 produced toxic metabolites. Of the 70 fungi isolated, 59 produced toxins which caused visible lesions in livers, kidneys, and spleens but did not cause mortality. Toxicity, graded in terms of the mortality rate and the extent of lesions in livers, kidneys, and s...

Cell-wall fractions were obtained from Aspergillus niger and Chaetomium globosum. Non-structural protein was removed by successive washes in urea, NH,OH and formic acid. Amino acid analyses indicated that structural wall proteins were acidic. Aspartic acid was the free amino terminal residue of the protein in both species. Comparison of the ‘maps’ of peptic peptides indicate that there may be s...

Eumycetoma is a traumatic fungal infection in tropical and subtropical areas that may lead to severe disability. Madurella mycetomatis is one of the prevalent etiologic agents in arid Northeastern Africa. The source of infection has not been clarified. Subcutaneous inoculation from plant thorns has been hypothesized, but attempts to detect the fungus in relevant material have remained unsuccess...

Although large quantities of heavy metal laden wastes are released in an uncontrolled manner by gold mining activities with ensuing contamination of the surrounding areas, there is scant information on the mycobiota of gold-mine sites. Thus, the present study was aimed to describe the fungal community structure in three differently As- and Hg-polluted soils collected from the Pestarena decommis...

Fungal community composition in composts of lignocellulosic wastes was assessed via 454-pyrosequencing of ITS1 libraries derived from the three major composting phases. Ascomycota represented most (93%) of the 27,987 fungal sequences. A total of 102 genera, 120 species, and 222 operational taxonomic units (OTUs; >97% similarity) were identified. Thirty genera predominated (ca. 94% of the sequen...

We describe a method to genetically manipulate Chaetomium thermophilum, a eukaryotic thermophile, along with various biochemical applications. The transformation method depends on a thermostable endogenous selection marker operating at high temperatures combined with chromosomal integration of target genes. Our technique allows exploiting eukaryotic thermophiles as source for purifying thermost...