wild grasses are the most important primary feedstuffs which are susceptible to contamination with toxigenic fungi belonging to aspergillus spp. in order to explore diversity of aspergillus species associated with the inflorescences of gramineous weeds, infected inflorescences were collected from wild grasses in western parts of iran. fifty-six aspergillus isolates were obtained from all diseas...

a specific polymerase chain reaction (pcr) method was applied for identification of bovine (bos taurus), ovine (ovis aries) and caprine (capra hircus) pure and binary mixtures of raw and heat-processed meats. these meats are used in food industry products and/or for direct consumption of consumers. the mitochondrial dna was amplified as a template in a pcr reaction by use of specific primers re...

Background: Meat species adulteration has become a problem of concern. This study aimed to compare two previously published multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) methods for meat species authentication.  Methods: The primers used in the first multiplex PCR involved species-specific reverse primer for sheep, goat, cattle, pig, and donkey with universal forward primer. In the second multiple...

Mutual relationship between endophytic fungi and some gramineuos plants is one of the recently known host-microbe interactions. Endophytic fungi are classified in class Ascomycetes, order Hypocreales, tribe Balansieae and mostly genus Neotyphodium. They are transferred into the progeny via maternal stock and have many benificial effects to their host plants, such as resistance to pests and dise...

Background: Splicing by overlap extension (SOE) PCR is used to create mutation in the coding sequence of an enzyme in order to study the role of specific residues in protein’s structure and function. Objectives: We introduced a nested-SOE-PCR (N –SOE-PCR) in order to increase the specificity and generating mutations in a gene by SOE-PCR.   Materials and Methods: Genomic DNA from Bacillus thermo...

Selecting specific primers is crucial for polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Nonspecific primers will bind to unintended genes and result in nonspecific amplicons. MFEprimer is a program for checking the specificity of PCR primers against the background DNA. In this chapter, we introduce: (1) the factors that affect the specificity of primers; (2) the principle of MFEprimer and its settings; (3) ...