Mould incidence and mycotoxin contamination in freshly harvested maize kernels originated from India

BACKGROUND: In this study, mould incidence and mycotoxin contamination were determined in freshly harvested maize samples collected from different agroclimatic regions of India. A total of 150 freshly harvested maize samples from major maize-growing areas of India (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu) were collected during winter seasons 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 to determine their toxigenic fungal incidences, and mycotoxins were analyzed and quantified by high-perfomance liquid chromatography. A total of 288 fungal isolates comprising Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium species were tested for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), ochratoxin A (OTA), trichothecenes (deoxynivalenol (DON) and T-2 toxin) and fumonisin B1 (FB1). Chemotype determination of fungal isolates was carried out by molecular and chemical analysis through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and high-performance thin layer chromatography respectively. The diversity and distribution of the mycoflora among the studied samples were recorded in terms of frequency, density, importance value index and diversity indices. RESULTS: A total of 288 fungal isolates were recovered from the 150 maize samples, of which 28 were positive for AFB1, 20 for OTA, 58 for FB1, 23 for DON and 11 for T-2 toxin chemotypes by PCR. Species-specific PCR assays were in line with morphological analysis. Toxigenic fungal incidences were found throughout the study region, and most of the toxins under study exceeded the maximum legal limits. The range of observed toxin concentrations were 48-58 &micro;g AFB1, 76-123 &micro;g FB1, 38-50 &micro;g T-2, 72-94 &micro;g DON and &lt;5 &micro;g OTA kg(-1) grain sample. CONCLUSION: Owing to the high incidences of toxigenic moulds and mycotoxins in the study area, there is a need for the creation of mycotoxin awareness among maize farmers of India to control the chronic adverse health effects on humans and livestock due to mycotoxins.</p

The Reactome pathway Knowledgebase

The Reactome Knowledgebase (www.reactome.org) provides molecular details of signal transduction, transport, DNA replication, metabolism and other cellular processes as an ordered network of molecular transformations-an extended version of a classic metabolic map, in a single consistent data model. Reactome functions both as an archive of biological processes and as a tool for discovering unexpected functional relationships in data such as gene expression pattern surveys or somatic mutation catalogues from tumour cells. Over the last two years we redeveloped major components of the Reactome web interface to improve usability, responsiveness and data visualization. A new pathway diagram viewer provides a faster, clearer interface and smooth zooming from the entire reaction network to the details of individual reactions. Tool performance for analysis of user datasets has been substantially improved, now generating detailed results for genome-wide expression datasets within seconds. The analysis module can now be accessed through a RESTFul interface, facilitating its inclusion in third party applications. A new overview module allows the visualization of analysis results on a genome-wide Reactome pathway hierarchy using a single screen page. The search interface now provides auto-completion as well as a faceted search to narrow result lists efficiently

The Reactome pathway knowledgebase

Reactome (http://www.reactome.org) is a manually curated open-source open-data resource of human pathways and reactions. The current version 46 describes 7088 human proteins (34% of the predicted human proteome), participating in 6744 reactions based on data extracted from 15 107 research publications with PubMed links. The Reactome Web site and analysis tool set have been completely redesigned to increase speed, flexibility and user friendliness. The data model has been extended to support annotation of disease processes due to infectious agents and to mutation

The Gene Ontology resource: enriching a GOld mine

The Gene Ontology Consortium (GOC) provides the most comprehensive resource currently available for computable knowledge regarding the functions of genes and gene products. Here, we report the advances of the consortium over the past two years. The new GO-CAM annotation framework was notably improved, and we formalized the model with a computational schema to check and validate the rapidly increasing repository of 2838 GO-CAMs. In addition, we describe the impacts of several collaborations to refine GO and report a 10% increase in the number of GO annotations, a 25% increase in annotated gene products, and over 9,400 new scientific articles annotated. As the project matures, we continue our efforts to review older annotations in light of newer findings, and, to maintain consistency with other ontologies. As a result, 20 000 annotations derived from experimental data were reviewed, corresponding to 2.5% of experimental GO annotations. The website (http://geneontology.org) was redesigned for quick access to documentation, downloads and tools. To maintain an accurate resource and support traceability and reproducibility, we have made available a historical archive covering the past 15 years of GO data with a consistent format and file structure for both the ontology and annotations

Mould incidence and mycotoxin contamination in freshly harvested maize kernels originated from India

BACKGROUND: In this study, mould incidence and mycotoxin contamination were determined in freshly harvested maize samples collected from different agroclimatic regions of India. A total of 150 freshly harvested maize samples from major maize-growing areas of India (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu) were collected during winter seasons 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 to determine their toxigenic fungal incidences, and mycotoxins were analyzed and quantified by high-perfomance liquid chromatography. A total of 288 fungal isolates comprising Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium species were tested for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), ochratoxin A (OTA), trichothecenes (deoxynivalenol (DON) and T-2 toxin) and fumonisin B1 (FB1). Chemotype determination of fungal isolates was carried out by molecular and chemical analysis through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and high-performance thin layer chromatography respectively. The diversity and distribution of the mycoflora among the studied samples were recorded in terms of frequency, density, importance value index and diversity indices. RESULTS: A total of 288 fungal isolates were recovered from the 150 maize samples, of which 28 were positive for AFB1, 20 for OTA, 58 for FB1, 23 for DON and 11 for T-2 toxin chemotypes by PCR. Species-specific PCR assays were in line with morphological analysis. Toxigenic fungal incidences were found throughout the study region, and most of the toxins under study exceeded the maximum legal limits. The range of observed toxin concentrations were 48-58 μg AFB1, 76-123 μg FB1, 38-50 μg T-2, 72-94 μg DON and &lt;5 μg OTA kg-1 grain sample. CONCLUSION: Owing to the high incidences of toxigenic moulds and mycotoxins in the study area, there is a need for the creation of mycotoxin awareness among maize farmers of India to control the chronic adverse health effects on humans and livestock due to mycotoxins