Holistic Mycotoxin Prevention Research Preventions

How MPM Scientists are tackling the problem from diverse angles

Improving Food Safety by Controlling Mycotoxin Contamination and Enhancing Climate Resilience of Wheat and Barley 

• Forecasting: Impact of climate on host susceptibility and Fusarium virulence.
• Breeding: Identify germplasm for breeders to target climate resilient mycotoxin resistance and high grain quality traits.
• Biocontrol: Manipulate microbial populations to control....
• Mitigate Post Harvest: Develop biofumigant to inhibit fungal growth and mycotoxin production during barley malting.
• Identify Pathogen Virulence Traits/Effectors: F. graminearum core/population-specific virulence traits.
• Regulatory Metabolites: Manipulate Fusarium metabolites to reduce F. graminearum inoculum in the field.

Innovative Food and Feed Safety Research to Eliminate Mycotoxin Contamination in Corn and other Crops

• Gene Editing: Kernel-specific expression of RNAi targeting the fumonisin biosynthetic gene FUM1.
• Identify Host Resistance/Mycotoxin Regulation Traits: Corn zmCRR1 protein, papain-like cysteine proteases, oxylipins.
• Define Diversity of Mycotoxin-producing Fusarium species: F. tricinctum species complex, F. proliferatum and F. verticillioides.
• Genetically Engineered: Use of killer meiotic drive element Sk^K to drive biased transmission of a gene that blocks fumonisin production.

Innovative Approaches to Monitor, Predict, and Reduce Fungal Toxins

• Computational Toxicology: Develop models to assess health risks associated with regulated mycotoxins.
• Remediation: Develop strategies to remove mycotoxins.
• Detection: Develop tools to predict mycotoxin contamination in grain commodities using chemical fingerprinting techniques combined with machine learning. Develop tools to detect emerging toxins, their metabolites and masked forms.
• Occurrence of Mycotoxins: Survey U.S. oats for mycotoxin contamination and associated fungi.