Genetic determinants of mycotoxin synthesis in genus Fusarium

The fungi of the genus Fusarium occur worldwide mainly on cereal grains. They are considered to be not only plant-pathogenic, but also the producers of secondary metabolites – mycotoxins. In our study, we focused on the analysis by Q-PCR of two genes expression – Tri4, Tri10 – involved in the production of Fusarium mycotoxin deoxynivalenol. Reference genes β-tub and UBC were found to be suitable for the expression level normalisation using the program geNorm. The level of expression of the target genes was analysed on four isolates of Fusarium graminearum grown in vitro. In all four isolates, Tri10 gene expression level was lower than that of Tri4 gene expression.