Mycotoxins continue to be a very serious threat to human health and a major concern for those entrusted with regulatingthesafetyoffoodandfoodproducts.Infectionofcerealsandothercrops, notablegrapevine, byFusarium, Aspergillus andPenicillium are a world-wide problem and recent epidemics in Europe, the USA and Canada have focused attention on this problem. A previous Special Issue of the European Journal of Plant Pathology (108 (7) 2003) was concerned with the nature of these toxins and the fungi that can produce them. The aim of this publication is to review the environmental factors that...

Toxigenic Fusarium species and ochratoxigenic fungi are responsible for various plant diseases which have important consequential effects on both human and animal health worldwide. The development of rapid, robust and sensitive detection methods based on new molecular technologies is urgently needed in order to identify fungal contamination in the field and quantify toxin accumulation in food and animal feed. Most of the contributions in this special issue are from results obtained through the EU 5th Framework project (QLKI-CT-1998-01380) "DETOX-FUNGI: early detection of toxigenic Fusarium...

Toxigenic Fusarium species and ochratoxigenic fungi are responsible for various plant diseases which have important consequential effects on both human and animal health worldwide. The development of rapid, robust and sensitive detection methods based on new molecular technologies is urgently needed in order to identify fungal contamination in the field and quantify toxin accumulation in food and animal feed. Most of the contributions in this special issue are from results obtained through the EU 5th Framework project (QLKI-CT-1998-01380) "DETOX-FUNGI: early detection of toxigenic Fusarium...

This book is a collection of papers presented at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Biology and Molecular Biology of Plant-Pathogen Interactions" which was held at Dillington College, Ilminster, UK, 1-6 September 1985. It had been preceded by Advanced Study Institutes at Porte Conte, Sardinia in 1975 and at Cape Sounion, Greece in 1981. In recent years, methods for the manipulation and transfer of genes have revolutionized our understanding of gene structure and function. It was thus opportune to bring together scientists from distinct disciplines, e. g. plant pathology, cytology,...

There is an urgent need to expand our knowledge of both the nature of the toxigenic fungi that are widespread on economically-important plants and the effect of their toxic secondary metabolites on human health. Informa- tion about the production of mycotoxins by plant pathogens, particularly by species of Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium, their occurrence in infected plants, as well as their role in the plant-pathogen interaction, for example as virulence/pathogenicity factors, is a pre-requisite for preventing plant disease and hence for reducing the Ievels of mycotoxin contamination....