Natural contamination by zearalenone, a toxic metabolite of Fusarium fungi, was surveyed in 160 samples of sorghum imported from 2001 to 2006 into Japan for feed. Of these 160 samples, 84 (52.5%) were contaminated with zearalenone, ranging in concentration from 60 to 7.260 microg/kg. In the contaminated sorghum samples, F. semitectum, F. verticillioides, F. oxysporum, and other Fusarium spp. we...

Conidia are primary means of asexual reproduction and dispersal in a variety of pathogenic fungi, and it is widely recognized that they play a critical role in animal and plant disease epidemics. However, genetic mechanisms associated with conidiogenesis are complex and remain largely undefined in numerous pathogenic fungi. We previously showed that Htf1, a homeobox transcription factor, is req...

An isolate of Fusarium verticillioides (MRC826) that induced experimental leukoencephalomalacia, also caused acute toxicity when fed to pigs and administered per rumen fistula to sheep. Pigs developed severe pulmonary oedema while sheep manifested severe nephrosis and hepatosis. A less toxic isolate (F. verticillioides MRC602), fed to baboons, resulted in acute congestive heart failure or hepat...

Fusarium species are ubiquitous in nature, cause a range of plant diseases, and produce a variety of chemicals often referred to as secondary metabolites. Although some fungal secondary metabolites affect plant growth or protect plants from other fungi and bacteria, their presence in grain-based food and feed is more often associated with a variety of diseases in plants and in animals. Many of ...

To improve sorghum for bioenergy and forage uses, brown midrib (bmr)6 and -12 near-isogenic genotypes were developed in different sorghum backgrounds. The bmr6 and bmr12 grain had significantly reduced colonization by members of the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex compared with the wild type, as detected on two semiselective media. Fusarium spp. were identified using sequence analysis of a...

Isolates of Fusarium were discovered in peat soil samples collected from peat swamp forest, waterlogged peat soil, and peat soil from oil palm plantations. Morphological characteristics were used to tentatively identify the isolates, and species confirmation was based on the sequence of translation elongation factor-1α (TEF-1α) and phylogenetic analysis. Based on the closest match of Basic Loca...

Microbes encounter a broad spectrum of antimicrobial compounds in their environments and often possess metabolic strategies to detoxify such xenobiotics. We have previously shown that Fusarium verticillioides, a fungal pathogen of maize known for its production of fumonisin mycotoxins, possesses two unlinked loci, FDB1 and FDB2, necessary for detoxification of antimicrobial compounds produced b...

fusarium verticillioides (f. verticillioides) is not only a primary pathogen of maize, but also can causedisease in other crops such as sorghum. pathogenicity is related to mycotoxin production such as fumonisin.in the present study, 24 isolates of f. verticillioides, which were previously identified by phenotype basedmethods, were re-identified using restriction fragment length polymorphism (r...

Contamination of animal and poultry feeds by Fusarium and the mycotoxin Fumonisin B1 is frequent in the feed supply chain. The present study evaluated the prevalence of fumonisin B1 producing Fusarium among irradiated and non-irradiated animal and poultry feed mixtures. Further, the efficiency of γ-rays (2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 kGy) to minimize Fusarium growth and biosynthesis of fumonisin B1 i...