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Title: FUSARIUM-ID V.1.0: A DNA SEQUENCE DATABASE FOR IDENTIFYING FUSARIUM

Author
item GEISER, DAVID - PENN STATE UNIV
item DELMAR JIMENEZ-GASCO, MARIA - PENN STATE UNIV
item KANG, SEOGCHAN - PENN STATE UNIV
item MAKALOWSKA, IZABELA - PENN STATE UNIV
item VEERARAGHAVAN, NARAYANAN - PENN STATE UNIV
item Ward, Todd
item ZHANG, NING - PENN STATE UNIV
item KULDAU, GRETCHEN - PENN STATE UNIV
item O Donnell, Kerry

Submitted to: European Journal of Plant Pathology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/5/2004
Publication Date: 6/1/2004
Citation: Geiser, D.M., Delmar Jimenez-Gasco, M., Kang, S., Makalowska, I., Veeraraghavan, N., Ward, T.J., Zhang, N., Kuldau, G.A., O Donnell, K. 2004. Fusarium-ID v.1.0: a DNA sequence database for identifying Fusarium. European Journal of Plant Pathology. 110(4):473-479.

Interpretive Summary: Species of the filamentous fungus Fusarium collectively represent the single most important group of toxigenic plant pathogens. In addition, just within the past two decades, these molds have emerged as opportunistic and often fatal pathogens of immunocompromised and artificially immunosuppressed patients. Efforts to accurately communicate what Fusarium species are responsible for human and plant disease, and for toxin contamination of food and feed, have been hampered because most of the species are either difficult or impossible to tell apart using morphology alone. To address this problem, a web-accessible database has been constructed called FUSARIUM-ID that will allow individuals to identify isolates of interest, using a partial DNA sequence from a gene called translation elongation factor. Once this sequence is generated from the isolate of interest, it is compared with those in the FUSARIUM-ID database to obtain a rapid and accurate identification. Future versions of this database will be expanded to include all toxigenic and pathogenic species. This work will greatly benefit mycotoxicologists, plant pathologists and medical mycologists in accurately communicating their results to the scientific community.

Technical Abstract: One of the greatest impediments to the study of Fusarium has been the incorrect and confused application of species names to toxigenic and pathogenic isolates, resulting in large part to intrinsic limitations of morphological species recognition and its application. To address this problem, we have created FUSARIUM-ID v.1.0, a publicly available database of partial translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF) DNA sequences, presently representing a selected sample of the genus' diversity, with excellent representation of Type-B trichothecene toxin producers, and the Gibberella fujikuroi, Fusarium oxysporum and F. solani species complexes. Users can generate sequences using primers that are conserved across the genus, and use the sequence as a query to BLAST the database, which can be accessed at http://fusarium.cbio.psu.edu, or in a phylogenetic analysis. Correct identification to a known species in these groups often can be performed using this gene region alone. This growing database will contain only vouchered sequences attached to publicly available cultures. In the future, FUSARIUM-ID will be expanded to include additional sequences, including multiple sequences from the same species together with sequences from new and revised species.