Mycelial characteristics of dikaryotic collections of 6 medicinal polypore mushrooms (Fomes fomentarius, Fomitopsis pinicola, Ganoderma adspersum, G. applanatum, G. lucidum, and G. resinaceum) with different geographical origins (Armenia, China, France, Iran, Italy, and Russia) were screened. A total of 42 polypore collections were molecularly identified by sequencing the internal transcribed s...

To investigate the significance of antibiotics for the producing organism(s) in the natural habitat, we screened a specimen of the fungicolous fungus Trichoderma phellinicola (syn. Hypocrea phellinicola) growing on its natural host Phellinus ferruginosus. Results revealed that a particular group of non-ribosomal antibiotic polypeptides, peptaibiotics, which contain the non-proteinogenic marker ...

Fusarium verticillioides (teleomorph Gibberella moniliformis) can be either an endophyte of maize, causing no visible disease, or a pathogen-causing disease of ears, stalks, roots and seedlings. At any stage, this fungus can synthesize fumonisins, a family of mycotoxins structurally similar to the sphingolipid sphinganine. Ingestion of fumonisin-contaminated maize has been associated with a num...

Fusarium graminearum (teleomorph, Gibberella zeae) is the predominant causal agent of Fusarium head blight (FHB) of wheat resulting in yearly losses through reduction in grain yield and quality and accumulation of fungal generated toxins in grain. Numerous fungal genes potentially involved in virulence have been identified and studies with deletion mutants to ascertain their role are in progres...

Aspergillus section Clavati has been revised using morphology, secondary metabolites, physiological characters and DNA sequences. Phylogenetic analysis of beta-tubulin, ITS and calmodulin sequence data indicated that Aspergillus section Clavati includes 6 species, A. clavatus (synonyms: A. apicalis, A. pallidus), A. giganteus, A. rhizopodus, A. longivesica, Neocarpenteles acanthosporus and A. c...

A genetic map of the filamentous fungus Fusarium graminearum (teleomorph: Gibberella zeae) was constructed to both validate and augment the draft whole-genome sequence assembly of strain PH-1. A mapping population was created from a cross between mutants of the sequenced strain (PH-1, NRRL 31084, originally isolated from Michigan) and a field strain from Minnesota (00-676, NRRL 34097). A total ...

Seedlings of Ricinus communis tolerated soil-borne Rhizoctonia infection in strain dependent manner. There was no connection revealed between pathogenicity of strains and their origin or taxonomic position, however, the castor plant proved to be susceptible to most strains highly pathogenic to other host plants as well. Rhizoctonia zeae (teleomorph: Waitea circinata), a species new for European...

Byssochlamys and related Paecilomyces strains are often heat resistant and may produce mycotoxins in contaminated pasteurised foodstuffs. A comparative study of all Byssochlamys species was carried out using a polyphasic approach to find characters that differentiate species and to establish accurate data on potential mycotoxin production by each species. Phylogenetic analysis of the ITS region...

The two diaporthalean fungi Anisogramma virgultorum and A. anomala are biotrophic parasites. A. virgultorum causes stromatal cankers on young shoots of birch whereas A. anomala infects young branches of Corylus avellana. Although previous classifications based on morphological characteristics placed both species in the Gnomoniaceae, Diaporthales, their taxonomic position within the order and th...

Understanding the nature of species" boundaries is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology. The availability of genomes from several species of the genus Aspergillus allows us for the first time to examine the demarcation of fungal species at the whole-genome level. Here, we examine four case studies, two of which involve intraspecific comparisons, whereas the other two deal with intersp...