Morphological characteristics, distribution, and mycotoxin profiles of fusarium species from soils in Peninsular Malaysia

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Date
2008-08
Authors
Mohamed Nor, Nik Mohd Izham Bin
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Abstract
Fusarium is considered as one of the most interesting and important group of fungi, because of. the diversity, cosmopolitan, and ability to cause ; serious diseases on plants, humans, animals, as well as mycotoxicoses. Fusarium species is commonly found in the soils in all major geographic regions of the world. However, many researchers find it difficult to identify Fusarium into species level morphologically due to the close similarities and vast variabilities within the species. Hence, the main objectives of these studies were to identify Fusarium isolated from soils in Peninsular Malaysia into species by using morphological features, to study their distributions and density, and to investigate their mycotoxin profiles. From 55 composite soil samples with different vegetation and land use throughout Peninsular Malaysia, 492 isolates of Fusarium were identified into 1 0 species and one unidentified species. The most dominant species were F. so/ani (39%), followed by F. oxysporum (30%), F. semitectum (14%), F. pro/iferatum (7%}, F. subg/utinans (3%), F. compactum (2%), F. equiseti (2%), F. chamydosporum (1%), F. merismoides (1%), F. dimerum (0.8%), and Fusarium sp. 1 (0.2%). The identification by using morphological characteristics was convenient and able to distinguish the species. Thus, the key for identification of Fusarium species from soils was presented. Soil vegetation and usage as well as other soil characteristics have an influence in the distribution and population of Fusarium species where Fusarium species are more abundant in cultivated, followed by acidic, loamy, and moist soils. F. so/ani was the most prevalent species, being presence in 52 out of 55 samples (94.5%). In the study of mycotoxin profiles, some species could be distinguished from others that could be used to complement the morphological species identification. Mor_1iliformin, zearalenone (0.81 - 205.88 1-JI/g), and beauvericin (0.94 - 2122.06 1-JI/g) were detected from 24 out of 28 isolates tes. ted. Fumonisin 81 was not detected in any of the isolates. In \ addition, a few extract of mycotoxins were highly toxic to brine shrimp larvae i.e. moniliformi11 (100%), zearalenone (100%), and beauvericin (98%). The results showed the ability of certain Fusarium species to produce toxins which may assist in the morphological identification, and the potential toxicity of Fusarium species isolated from soils. Thus, the findings in these studies provided the latest report on the distribution and mycotoxin profiles of Fusarium species isolated from soils in Peninsular Malaysia.
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Keywords
Characteristics, distribution , Mycotoxin profiles , Fusarium species , Soils Peninsular Malaysia
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