austroamericanum,F. meridionale,F. graminearum

sensu stricto and F. cortaderiae from the NRRL collection were analysed, and only F. poae isolates gave a positive result for the presence of a 296-bp partial tri7 DNA fragment. Moreover, the primer set was tested from cereal seed samples where F. poae and other Fusarium species with a negative result for the specific reaction (F. graminearum,F. oxysporum,F. chlamydosporum,F. sporotrichioides,F. equiseti and F. acuminatum) were isolated, and the expected fragment was amplified. We developed a rapid and reliable PCR assay to detect potential nivalenol-producing F. poae isolates. Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a disease of cereals caused selleckchem by a complex of filamentous ascomycete fungi of genera Fusarium with a worldwide distribution (Stenglein, 2009). Fusarium species have a severe impact, reducing the yield and quality of seeds on diverse cereals such as wheat, barley, oat and corn (Kulik et al., 2007). In addition,

many species of the genus can produce mycotoxins, which are toxic metabolites that contaminate agricultural products along food production and can produce adverse effects for human and animal health (Moreno et al., 2009). Fusarium species are able to produce certain toxins such as fumonisin, enniatin, beauvericin, fusarin, moniliformin, fusaric acid, fusaproliferin and trichothecenes (Desjardins, 2006). Trichothecenes are tricyclic sesquiterpenes find more and some Fusarium species can produce the type A and/or the type B. Type A, such as T-2 toxin HT-2 toxin, neosolaniol and diacetoxyscirpenol (DAS) are more acutely toxic than type B trichothecenes such as deoxynivalenol (vomitoxin-DON) and nivalenol (NIV). However, NIV is present in more chronic toxicoses (Prelusky et al., 1994; Rotter et al., 1996). Fusarium poae is considered a weak pathogen and is commonly isolated from cereal glumes (Polley & Turner, 1995). Although this species has been previously considered as a secondary pathogen in the FHB complex, recent Cell Penetrating Peptide studies have shown

that F. poae is a more prominent FHB-causing species (Stenglein, 2009). The main type B trichothecene produced by F. poae is NIV, which has been found in substantial amounts in cereal samples (Schollenberger et al., 2006). The main region containing genes involved in trichothecene biosynthesis is the TRI gene cluster, comprising 12 genes (tri8, tri7, tri3, tri4, tri6, tri5, tri10, tri9, tri11, tri12, tri13 and tri14). Nivalenol production required tri13 and tri7 genes that produce the acetylation and oxygenation of the oxygen at C-4 to produce nivalenol and 4-acetyl nivalenol, respectively (Lee et al., 2009). In recent years, genotype characterization based on PCR assays using primers developed from the TRI gene cluster to detect and screen important toxin-producing Fusarium species such as Fusarium graminearum (Chandler et al., 2003; Quarta et al., 2006; Ji et al., 2007; Scoz et al., 2009; Reynoso et al., 2011; Sampietro et al., 2011), F. culmorum (Jennings et al.