Fungi are eukaryotic, heterogeneous, unicellular to filamentous, spore-bearing, and chemoorganotrophic organisms which lack chlorophyll. This present study was carried out isolate identify fungi from petroleum-contaminated soil. Several fungal genera included Rhizopus spp., Mucor Penicillium Rhizoctonia Aspergillus Alternaria Cladosporiumspp. were isolated using potatoes dextrose agar, Czapek-D...

The genes encoding the aflatoxin biosynthetic pathway enzymes have been localized as a cluster to a 75-kb DNA fragment. The enzymatic functions of the products of most of the genes in the cluster are known, but there are a few genes that have not yet been characterized. We report here the characterization of one of these genes, a gene designated aflJ. This gene resides in the cluster adjacent t...

Genes involved in intermediary and secondary metabolism in fungi are frequently physically linked or clustered. For example, in Aspergillus nidulans the entire pathway for the production of sterigmatocystin (ST), a highly toxic secondary metabolite and a precursor to the aflatoxins (AF), is located in a ∼54 kb, 23 gene cluster. We discovered that a complete ST gene cluster in Podospora anserina...

The molecular regulation of aflatoxin biosynthesis is complex and influenced by several environmental conditions; one of these is temperature. Aflatoxins are produced optimally at 28-30 C, and production decreases as temperatures approach 37 C, the optimum temperature for fungal growth. To better characterize the influence of temperature on aflatoxin biosynthesis, we monitored the accumulation ...

Aflatoxins are carcinogenic metabolites produced by several strains of Aspergillus flavus group in food and feed. Cluster genes in aflatoxin biosynthesis pathway contain structural, regular and unassigned genes , nor-1 , ver-1 , and omt-1 are structural genes that coding for key enzymes and aflR is a regulatory gene that plays a key role in the production of aflatoxin and is affecting on the s...

The health risks associated with ingesting food contaminated mycotoxins, particularly aflatoxin-contaminated staple foods like maize and other cereals, have been widely studied. However, there is little knowledge about the role of inhalation pathogenic fungi as bioaerosols in air from handling crops an occupational risk. This paper presents a study aimed at determining level airborne aflatoxin-...

background: the effect of curcumin as a natural safe compound with different biological activities was examined on fungal growth and aflatoxin production in aspergillus parasiticus nrrl 2999. methods: the fungus was cultured in presence of serial two-fold concentrations of curcumin (125-2000 µg/ml) in yeast extract sucrose broth for 3 days at 28°c. mycelia dry weight was determined as an index ...

PURPOSE To document transcriptional activation (expression) of key aflatoxin biosynthetic pathway genes in corneal isolates of Aspergillus flavus. METHODS The expression of certain regulatory (aflatoxin regulatory [aflR] and aflatoxin J [aflJ]) and structural (polyketide synthase acetate [pksA] and norsolonic acid-1 [nor-1]) genes in four corneal A. flavus isolates was evaluated by reverse tr...

Several fungi in the Aspergillus section Flavi have been widely used for fermentative food production, while some related species in the section are known to produce mycotoxin(s) that causes mycotic diseases. Common evolutionary markers, such as rRNA gene sequences and their internal transcribed spacers, cannot differentiate these non-aflatoxin-producing species from aflatoxin producers. Multil...

Fifteen non-aflatoxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus, represent a wide range of geographic regions of Iran (six provinces include Fars, Ardebil, Guilan, Golestan, Kerman and Semnan) and vegetative compatibility groups (VCGs), were collected from corn (Zea mays L.), peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) and pistachio (Pistachia vera L.) soils and kernels, were screened for the presence of aflatoxin bi...