detection of fumonisin chemotype produced by fusarium proliferatum isolated from nuts in iraq using specific pcr assays

Introduction: the present study was carried out to evaluate the occurrence of toxicogenic fusarium proliferatumstrains isolated from nuts in iraq. materials and methods: a total of 108 nut samples collected from different markets in iraq. strains of fusarium spp. isolated from nuts seeds and their morphological characterization of the strains were examined based on their growth on carnation leaf agar (cla) and potato dextrose agar (pda). the identification of f. proliferatum isolates were confirmed molecularly using species specific primers of pro1/pro2 primers. pcrbased detection of fumonisinsynthesispathway gene was also used to determine the potential of f. proliferatum isolates to produce fumonisin using fum1 genebased (fum1 f/fum1 r) primers. results: based on morphological features 28 fungal isolates were obtained from nuts and identified into four species f. proliferatum (12), aspergillus niger (8), aspergillus flavus (5), and penicillium sp. (3). the primers pro1/pro2 produced dna fragments 585 bp in all f. proliferatum strains. pcr assays also showed dna fragments (183 bp) were amplified in nearly 42% of f. proliferatum strains. discussion and conclusion: of 12 tested isolates, 5 isolates (~42%) being fumonisin chemotype. to our knowledge, this is the first report on molecular identification and mycotoxigenic capacity of fusarium fujikuroi species complex (ffsc) isolated from nuts in iraq.