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Title: ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ASPERGILLUS NOMIUS FROM JAPANESE SOIL ANDSILK WORM

Author
item ITO, YOKO - NATL RES INST VEG, JAPAN
item Peterson, Stephen
item GOTO, TETSUHISA - NATL FOOD RES INST, JAPAN

Submitted to: Mycotaxon
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/1/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Identification of mold species is critically important for assuring food safety and quality, and for import regulations, because some molds make carcinogenic toxins that can render agricultural products and commodities worthless. We discovered an aflatoxin forming mold in Japanese agricultural soils that previously was not known from that country. Agricultural inspections must now check for the presence of this mold in food products and commodities.

Technical Abstract: Aspergillus nomius, an aflatoxigenic species in Aspergillus section Flavi was first reported by Kurtzman et al. in 1987, but the existence of this fungus in Japan has never been reported. Several aflatoxigenic fungi were isolated from Japanese tea field soil and silk worm excrement that display characteristics consistent with A. nomius. In order to identify these isolates, we examined their micro-morphological characters, mycotoxin production and DNA sequences. These fungi have light olive to moss green colony color; the conidia are spherical to subspherical having very rough surface ornamentation and their diameter was about 4.6 um. They produce aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 but do not produce detectable amounts of cyclopiazonic acid. The DNA sequences from the ITS and large subunit rDNA are identical with the sequence of an ex type strain of A. nomius. On the basis of these data, we determined that two of these isolates are A. nomius.