An official website of the United States government.
Fumonisins are toxins produced in corn by the fungus Gibberella fujikuroi. Evidence has linked fumonisin with cancer in humans. With the likelihood of fumonisin concentrations being regulated worldwide, the impact on the U.S. food industry will be substantial. The long-range goals of this research are to understand fumonisin biosynthesis and to develop novel approaches for eliminating fumonisin contamination of food sources.
We have shown that fumonisin biosynthesis is suppressed by ammonium. The data suggest that targeting the regulation of nitrogen metabolism may be a reasonable strategy to minimize fumonisin contamination. The specific objectives are to: 1) use molecular techniques to isolate genes with expression patterns that correlate with fumonisin biosynthesis, and 2) isolate tagged strains of the fungus with mutations affecting the regulation of fumonisin biosynthesis.We anticipate that mutations affecting fumonisin production will involve genes that encode regulatory factors that may be common to several pathways regulated by nitrogen metabolism. Information from this research will further our understanding of the genetics and molecular biology of fumonisin biosynthesis which should give insight to new approaches for eliminating fumonisin contamination.