Genotyping of Fusarium verticillioides strains producing fumonisin B1 in feed associated with animal health problems

Fusarium verticillioides (F. verticillioides) is not only a primary pathogen of maize, but also can cause
disease in other crops such as sorghum. Pathogenicity is related to mycotoxin production such as fumonisin.
In the present study, 24 isolates of F. verticillioides, which were previously identified by phenotype based
methods, were re-identified using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. Digestion of
the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products with the restriction enzyme TasI allowed identifying four nonverticillioides strains that were discarded from our study. The genetic variations among the remaining 20
strains of F. verticillioides were analysed by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR method
with 4 primers. Of the four primers tested, two primers produced polymorphic amplification patterns.
Dendrogram for each primer indicated the distance of the strains to each other. Using primers of A, B, C and
D, the isolates were divided to 8, 9, 7 and 7 groups, respectively. The results of this study indicated genetic
relationship among DNA polymorphic patterns with geographic regions and the severity of fumonisin B1
(FB1) production. It seems that RAPD analysis is a suitable technique for strain typing of F. verticillioides.