The yellow mealworm, Tenebrio molitor, L., can be an important component of the circular economy because of its ability to transform a variety of agricultural wastes and byproducts into valuable livestock feed. Analysis of their ability to endure toxins coupled with their potential to transfer contaminants to higher trophic levels is not complete.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAppl Microbiol Biotechnol
September 2024
Mycotoxins that contaminate grain can cause the devaluation of agricultural products and create health risks for the consumer. Fumonisins are one such mycotoxin. Produced primarily by Fusarium verticillioides (Hypocreales: Nectriaceae) (Nirenberg, 1976) on corn, fumonisins' economic impact can be significant by causing various diseases in livestock if contaminated corn is not monitored and removed from animal feed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrichothecenes are a structurally diverse family of toxic secondary metabolites produced by certain species of multiple fungal genera. All trichothecene analogs share a core 12,13-epoxytrichothec-9-ene (EPT) structure but differ in presence, absence and types of substituents attached to various positions of EPT. Formation of some of the structural diversity begins early in the biosynthetic pathway such that some producing species have few trichothecene biosynthetic intermediates in common.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFusarium head blight (FHB) is a destructive fungal disease of wheat that causes significant economic loss due to lower yields and the contamination of grain with fungal toxins (mycotoxins), particularly deoxynivalenol (DON). FHB disease spread and mycotoxin contamination has been shown to worsen at elevated CO, therefore, it is important to identify climate-resilient FHB resistance. This work evaluates whether wheat with the quantitative trait locus (QTL), the most widely deployed FHB resistance locus in wheat breeding programs, provides reliable disease resistance at elevated CO.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol introduce a health risk to the food supply and are costly to manage or avoid. Technologies for reducing or eliminating the toxicity of deoxynivalenol could be useful in a variety of processes, such as in preserving the value as animal feed of byproducts of ethanol production. We characterized transformation products of deoxynivalenol that were formed by the combination of a fungal laccase paired with the chemical mediator 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-N-oxyl (TEMPO), using chromatography, mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study was conducted to elucidate evolutionary relationships and species diversity within the species complex (FBSC). We also evaluate the potential of these species to produce mycotoxins and other bioactive secondary metabolites. Maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony analyses of sequences from portions of four marker loci (ITS rDNA, , and ) and the combined 4495 bp data set support recognition of seven genealogically exclusive species within the FBSC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFungal volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are low-molecular weight fungal metabolites that have high vapor pressure at ambient temperatures and can function as airborne signals. Here, we report a VOC study of several different species of . Direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) was applied for non-invasive VOC fingerprinting of isolates growing under standardized conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent studies on multiple continents indicate members of the species complex (FTSC) are emerging as prevalent pathogens of small-grain cereals, pulses, and other economically important crops. These understudied fusaria produce structurally diverse mycotoxins, among which enniatins (ENNs) and moniliformin (MON) are the most frequent and of greatest concern to food and feed safety. Herein a large survey of fusaria in the Fusarium Research Center and Agricultural Research Service culture collections was undertaken to assess species diversity and mycotoxin potential within the FTSC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrichothecenes are terpenoid toxins produced by species in 10 fungal genera, including species of . The trichothecene biosynthetic gene () cluster typically includes the gene, which encodes a terpene synthase that catalyzes formation of trichodiene, the parent compound of all trichothecenes. The two species, and , that have been examined are unique in that is located outside the cluster in a genomic region that does not include other known genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccurate species-level identification of an etiological agent is crucial for disease diagnosis and management because knowing the agent's identity connects it with what is known about its host range, geographic distribution, and toxin production potential. This is particularly true in publishing peer-reviewed disease reports, where imprecise and/or incorrect identifications weaken the public knowledge base. This can be a daunting task for phytopathologists and other applied biologists that need to identify in particular, because published and ongoing multilocus molecular systematic studies have highlighted several confounding issues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMango malformation disease (MMD) caused by spp. is an important limiting factor in most production areas worldwide. and have been reported as causing MMD in Mexico.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFusarium head blight (FHB) is a global cereal disease caused by a complex of Fusarium species. In Europe, the main species responsible for FHB are F. graminearum, F.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(rosy trumpet) is an economically important neotropical tree in Mexico that is highly valued for the quality of its wood, which is used for furniture, crafts, and packing, and for its use as an ornamental and shade tree in parks and gardens. During surveys conducted in the lower Balsas River Basin region in the states of Guerrero and Michoacán, symptoms of floral malformation were detected in trees. The main objectives of this study were to describe this new disease, to determine its causal agent, and to identify it using DNA sequence data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFScientific communication is facilitated by a data-driven, scientifically sound taxonomy that considers the end-user's needs and established successful practice. In 2013, the community voiced near unanimous support for a concept of that represented a clade comprising all agriculturally and clinically important species, including the species complex (FSSC). Subsequently, this concept was challenged in 2015 by one research group who proposed dividing the genus into seven genera, including the FSSC described as members of the genus , with subsequent justification in 2018 based on claims that the 2013 concept of is polyphyletic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreharvest mycotoxin contamination of field-grown crops is influenced not only by the host genotype, but also by inoculum load, insect pressure and their confounding interactions with seasonal weather. In two different field trials, we observed a preference in the natural infestation of corn earworm (CEW; Boddie) to specific maize ( L.) genotypes and investigated this observation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVentricular septal rupture (VSR) following myocardial infarction is rare in the reperfusion era. The decrease in patients presenting with myocardial infarction during the coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic could result in more frequent VSR. This report describes two patients with VSR presenting late after myocardial infarction and treated at a single institution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPseudoflower formation is arguably the rarest outcome of a plant-fungus interaction. Here we report on a novel putative floral mimicry system in which the pseudoflowers are composed entirely of fungal tissues in contrast to modified leaves documented in previous mimicry systems. Pseudoflowers on two perennial Xyris species (yellow-eyed grass, X.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Sphingolipids are structural components and signaling molecules in eukaryotic membranes, and many organisms produce compounds that inhibit sphingolipid metabolism. Some of the inhibitors are structurally similar to the sphingolipid biosynthetic intermediate sphinganine and are referred to as sphinganine-analog metabolites (SAMs). The mycotoxins fumonisins, which are frequent contaminants in maize, are one family of SAMs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHere, we report on the morphological, molecular, and chemical characterization of a novel species recovered from the roots and rhizosphere of (halfa, esparto, or needle grass) in central Tunisia. Formally described here as , this species is a member of the species complex but differs from the other two species within the complex, and , by its endophytic association with and its genealogical exclusivity based on multilocus phylogenetic analyses. To assess their sexual reproductive mode, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was designed and used to screen the three strains of , 51 of , and 14 of for mating type () idiomorph.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWorldwide, while Fusarium graminearum is the main causal species of Fusarium head blight (FHB) in small-grain cereals, a diversity of FHB-causing species belonging to different species complexes has been found in most countries. In the U.S.
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