title: Genetic diversity of environmental Aspergillus flavus strains in the state of São Paulo, Brazil by random amplified polymorphic DNA.
abstract: Aspergillus flavus is a very important toxigenic fungus that produces aflatoxins, a group of extremely toxic substances to man and animals. Toxigenic fungi can grow in feed crops, such as maize, peanuts, and soybeans, being thus of high concern for public health. There are toxigenic and non-toxigenic A. flavus variants, but the necessary conditions for expressing the toxigenic potential are not fully understood. Therefore, we have studied total-DNA polymorphism from toxigenic and non toxigenic A. flavus strains isolated from maize crops and soil at two geographic locations, 300 km apart, in the Southeast region of Brazil. Total DNA from each A. flavus isolate was extracted and subjected to polymerase chain reaction amplification with five randomic primers through the RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA) technique. Phenetic and cladistic analyses of the data, based on bootstrap analyses, led us to conclude that RAPD was not suitable to discriminate toxigenic from non toxigenic strains. But the present results support the use of RAPD for strain characterization, especially for preliminary evaluation over extensive collections.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Departamento de Microbiologia, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes 1374, Cidade Universitária, 05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brasil. microbiologia@microbiologia.vet.br
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lourenço
authors.forename: Edison Luís
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Durigon
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zanotto
authors.forename: Jovita Eugênia Gazzinelli
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Cruz Madeira
authors.forename: Adriana Palma
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: De Almeida
authors.forename: Benedito
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Correa
mesh_terms: D001231:Aspergillus flavus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D001938:Brazil; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000032:analysis*; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D019105:Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA Technique
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal