Evolution of secondary metabolite gene clusters in Aspergillus flavus

The goals and objectives associated with this project fall into two categories: those that are related to the professional development of the lead investigator and those that are related to better understanding the evolution of secondary metabolism in fungi.The overarching carrier goal of the primary investigator is to become a professor at a research university or a first-tier liberal arts college that values interdisciplinary research. As such a major focus of this project will be the objective to prepare the lead researcher for such a career through the following goals:1) Develop skills of bioinformatics2) Gain ability in molecular techniques associated with genetic manipulation of fungi3) Develop skills associated with teaching and pedagogy, particularly related to the development of course materials and the mentoring of both undergraduate and graduate-level students.4) To further develop professional networks through conferences and scientific communicationThe second major objective of the project is to develop a better understanding of fungal secondary metabolism. The premise of this proposed research is that combating mycotoxin contamination in food requires a better understanding how natural selection for secondary metabolite production shapes the genome variation and evolution of fungi. The goals proposed to address this objective are as follows:1) To test the hypothesis that non-aflatoxigenic isolates are more likely to retain other functional BGCs, particularly putative anti-insectans.2) To test the hypothesis that non-aflatoxigenic isolates will differentially express genes, and produce compounds associated with BGCs during competition with insects.3) To test the hypothesis that Genomes of aflatoxigenic isolates will have larger numbers of mutations than non-aflatoxigenic isolates.