Paper Details
Full metadata, abstract, citation, and access status.
Toxigenic and non-toxigenic fungal metabolite signatures in maize cultivated in Pakistan
Abstract
The current study extends on previous work of fungal species isolation from corn cobs collected from National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) Pakistan. The Ammonium test on Yeast Extract Sucrose Medium (YES) was used to screen out toxigenic and atoxigenic fungal strains. In present study, by means of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GCMS), the toxigenic isolates such as Aspergillus flavus, Penicillium chrysogenum, and Penicillium oxalicum, and the non-toxigenic isolates of Trichoderma harzianum and Aspergillus niger associated with maize, were identified based on their metabolic profiles. Distinct functional groups were revealed in toxigenic and atoxigenic samples by FTIR. A broad spectrum of volatile and semi-volatile metabolites was identified by GCMS. FTIR, based on functional group chemistry, efficiently distinguished functional groups, while compound-level resolution of toxigenic versus atoxigenic metabolic pathways was provided by GCMS. Together both techniques showed that toxigenic isolates withstand metabolite signatures linked with toxin production and pathogenicity, however, non-toxigenic biocontrol fungi showed mild or antifungal metabolite profiles. This work verifies the usefulness of FTIR and GCMS as effective tools for risk assessment, rapiddistinction and depiction of fungal communities connected with maize.
