Fusarium head blight (FHB), or scab, caused by several Fusarium species, especially Fusarium graminearum Schwabe [teleomorph Gibberella zeae (Schweinitz) Petch], is a widespread and destructive disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), and other small-grain cereals (Liddell 2003; Parry et al. 1995; Pirgozilev et al. 2003). These pathogens infect spikes and reduce gra...

Fusarium graminearum (teleomorph: Gibberella zeae) is an Ascomycete fungal plant pathogen which infects a range of agriculturally important crops, including wheat, barley, and maize. A random plasmid insertion mutagenesis approach was used to analyze the pathogenicity of the PH-1 strain, for which full genomic information is available. Fungal transformants were initially screened for their abil...

False smut of rice, caused by Ustilaginoidea virens (Cooke) Takahashi (teleomorph: Villosiclava virens), is one of the most important diseases affecting rice worldwide. Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation was used to identify functional genes in U. virens. In this study, we selected a single-copy insertion mutant T133 with deficiency in producing conidia by screening the T-DNA ins...

Colletotrichum graminicola (teleomorph, Glomerella graminicola) mutant T30 has a disruption in chsA, which is a class V or a class VI chitin synthase (class VI if recognized). The mutant conidia were significantly easier to fracture with glass beads than conidia of the wild type and two T30-derived strains that were complemented with chsA. Similarly, after extraction in alkali, the walls of sig...

The barley resistance gene mlo5 determines race non-specific resistance to the biotrophic powdery mildew pathogen Blumeria graminis f.sp. hordei. On the other hand, we have shown that barley lines that contain the mlo5 gene display enhanced susceptibility to the necrotrophic fungus Bipolaris sorokiniana (teleomorph: Cochliobolus sativus) and its toxic culture filtrate (Kumar et al. 2001). Enhan...

The genus Protocrea is redefined, based on holotype and fresh specimens of its type species P. farinosa, using morphology of teleomorph and anamorph and phylogenetic analyses of rpb2 sequences. Data based on currently available specimens suggest the existence of three well defined and three still unnamed species. Apart from the type, P. farinosa, none of the species originally included are acce...

An elderly male was seen at an outpatient urology clinic over a period of 3 years with repeat urine specimens containing 10(4) to 10(5) CFU of a "Candida species, not C. albicans." The urine specimens were described as infected due to the presence of pyuria, but no antifungal therapy was administered. On two occasions, the patient presented to the emergency room and urine specimens were sent to...

Enteroblastic phialidic conidiation by the corn pathogen Fusarium verticillioides (teleomorph Gibberella moniliformis) produces abundant, mostly single-celled microconidia in distinctive long chains. Because conidia might be critical for establishing in planta associations, we characterized a spontaneous F. verticillioides conidiation mutant in which phialides were incapable of enteroblastic co...

The trichothecene 3-O-acetyltransferase gene (FgTri101) required for trichothecene production by Fusarium graminearum is located between the phosphate permease gene (pho5) and the UTP-ammonia ligase gene (ura7). We have cloned and sequenced the pho5-to-ura7 regions from three trichothecene nonproducing Fusarium (i.e., F. oxysporum, F. moniliforme, and Fusarium species IFO 7772) that belong to t...

Mating type genes are central to sexual reproduction and compatibility in Ascomycete fungi. However the "MAT" loci experience unique evolutionary pressures that can result in rapid divergence and enhanced inter-specific gene-flow (lateral gene transfer). In this study, molecular evolution of MAT loci was considered using the genus Fusarium (Teleomorph: Gibberella) as a model. Both MAT1-1 and MA...