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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Food and Feed Safety Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #215061

Title: Batch Submission and Release of 19,618 Aspergillus flavus Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs)

Author
item Yu, Jiujiang
item NIERMAN, WILLIAM - TIGR ROCKVILLE MD
item Bhatnagar, Deepak
item Cleveland, Thomas

Submitted to: National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/1/2005
Publication Date: 1/1/2006
Citation: Yu, J., Nierman, W.C., Bhatnagar, D., Cleveland, T.E. 2006. Batch Submission and Release of 19,618 Aspergillus flavus Expressed Sequence Tags (EST). National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). (NCBI, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/), CO133039-CO152656.

Interpretive Summary: Aflatoxins are natural secondary metabolites produced by the fungal mold Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus. Contamination of agricultural commodities by aflatoxins poses serious health hazard to animals and human beings. Due to health and food safety concern, the mechanism of aflatoxin formation and prevention of aflatoxin contamination have been investigated in great detail. Aspergillus flavus expressed sequenced tags (ESTs) provides a rapid and effective method for identification of the genes involved in aflatoxin formation and promises effective control strategy being developed through biotechnology. These Aspergillus flavus genomics datum will help our understanding in the mechanism of aflatoxin formation for devising strategies to reduce or eliminate aflatoxin contamination of food and feed.

Technical Abstract: Aflatoxins are toxic and carcinogenic secondary metabolites. These compounds, produced by Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus, contaminate pre-harvest agricultural crops in the field and post-harvest grains during storage. In order to reduce and eliminate aflatoxin contamination of food and feed, a project to generate Aspergilllus flavus Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) have been initiated. More than 26,110 cDNA clones have been sequenced. A total of 19,618 high quality ESTs have been submitted to the GenBank Database of National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and subsequently released for public access (accession numbers: CO133039 to CO152656, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). These sequence datum have a significant impact to the research community studying fungal biology, field ecology, structural genomics, comparative genomics, and functional genomics. This information will help international researchers in deciphering the mechanisms of aflatoxin formation and in solving aflatoxin contamination of agricultural commodity.