Genomic Projects of Mycotoxinogenic Fungi: a Review

Abstract

Mycotoxins contamination caused by mycotoxinogenic fungi (mainly molds) is a great concern in nuts production worldwide. Pre-harvest mold infection and mycotoxins contamination are usually severe in nuts (peanuts, almonds and pistachio, etc.) that are grown under drought stressed conditions. Genomic research can provide new tools to study plant-fungi interaction and enhance nuts genetic improvement. However, genome research in almond is far behind other nuts due to the shortage of basic genome infrastructure, tools, and resources. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 25% of the world's foods including all kind of nuts are contaminated by different groups of mycotoxins (aflatoxins, fumonisins, cyclopiazonic acid (CPA), zearalenone, etc.). Contamination of mycotoxins in tree nuts, peanuts, corn and cottonseed has been recognized as a serious food safety hazard to both human and animals. Aflatoxin (of which the worst one is mycotoxins) levels of 2-4 ppb have been declared mandatory by importing European Countries and mycotoxins issue causes a trade barrier for exporting all nuts including almond and pistachio. As more whole fungal genome sequences become presented, comparing multiple genomes at the genomic, proteomic and other omics level can supply approaches into biological discovery about mycotoxin production by some of fungi mainly molds. For this matter, there are significant and powerful tools like bioinformatics software for genome comparison (FUNGIpath, e-Fungi, CFGP, SNUGB, PLATCOM, etc.) that are now available. The objective of this article is a brief genome survey about mycotoxins and genome of mycotoxinogenic fungi.