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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Mycotoxin Prevention and Applied Microbiology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #353499
Research Project: Genomic and Metabolomic Approaches for Detection and Control of Fusarium, Fumonisins and Other Mycotoxins on Corn

Location: Mycotoxin Prevention and Applied Microbiology Research

Title: Assessing the variability of pathogenicity within a group of Italian isolates of Fusarium verticillioides, pathogen of Zea mays, differing in unique genes of virulence

Author
item GROTTOLI, ALESSANDRO - University Of Rome Sapienza
item GIULIANO, GIOVANNI - University Of Rome Sapienza
item BECCACCIOLI, MARZIA - University Of Rome Sapienza
item BLANDINO, M - University Of Turin
item Brown, Daren
item SCALA, V - Crea Research Centre For Animal Production And Aquaculture (CREA-ZA)
item REVERBERI, MASSIMO - University Of Rome Sapienza

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/15/2018
Publication Date: 10/15/2018
Citation: Grottoli, A., Giuliano, G., Beccaccioli, M., Blandino, M., Brown, D.W., Scala, V., Reverberi, M. 2018. Assessing the variability of pathogenicity within a group of Italian isolates of Fusarium verticillioides, pathogen of Zea mays, differing in unique genes of virulence [abstract].

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The Fusarium fujikuroi species complex (FFSC) is one of the largest Fusarium complexes. Phylogenetic and molecular analyses shows a close relationship within the FFSC species; they may have distinct phenotypic traits like mycotoxin production, host-specificity and they may have supernumerary chromosomes (SCs) in addition to species-specific core chromosomes that may even differ among isolates in presence/absence, length and gene-abundance. SCs are important in the biology of pathogenic fungi. In a previous study, adopting a bioinformatic approach, we revealed the presence of “extra” genomic regions (EGRs), a putative SC, in the genome of Italian F. verticillioides ITEM10027 not present in the Fv7600 reference genome for Fv. For assessing the putative peculiarity of this EGRs within the Italian strains, we collected Fv samples from maize kernels sampled in the whole North Italy Po valley. To select a subset of strains, we analyzed EGRs presence by a PCR approach (presence/absence). We choose 24 strains unique strains to sequence by Illumina MiSeq. We designed a bioinformatic pipeline to identify inter and intra strain specific differences within the EGRs among the 24 samples. A set of genes with interesting Gene Ontology designation among the 24 Fv strains were found. In vivo pathogenicity assay on Zea mays kernels indicated significant difference among the 24 strains. The unique and specific genes present in the 24 strains may provide a sort of “gain of function” in the pathogenicity toolkit that could possibly explain the differences we found in the pathogenicity assay in planta.