Screening of Fusarium Species in Maize Using Molecular Techniques

Abstract

Contamination by mycotoxins in human food and animal feed is a worldwide problem because mycotoxins are naturally occurring toxic substances. Human ingestion of mycotoxins mainly occurs from the consumption of mycotoxins in residues and metabolites in animalderived foods such as milk or meat products. Present results describe the detection of mycotoxins in samples of maize seed collected from different localities Out of one thirty samples nine samples tested, 4 samples were found to be contamina ted with fusarium species. FUMl key genes that are involved in the production of the fumonisn, The fragments obtained were resolved on the DNA for generating data of fragment sizes. Use of the PCR combined with the Bioanalyzer offered significant benefits over traditional agarose gel electrophoresis and staining methods. Amplification of the gene fragments was also achieved using PCR with genes.