Deciphering the origin of Aspergillus flavus NRRL21882, the active biocontrol agent of Afla-Guard®.

Deciphering the origin of Aspergillus flavus NRRL21882, the active biocontrol agent of Afla-Guard®.

Lett Appl Microbiol. 2020 Nov 29;:

Authors: Chang PK, Chang TD, Katoh K

Abstract
Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of genome sequences of eight Aspergillus flavus and seven Aspergillus oryzae strains were extracted with Mauve, a multiple-genome alignment program. A phylogenetic analysis with sequences comprised of concatenated total SNPs by the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) of MAFFT adequately separated them into three groups, A. flavus S-morphotype, A. flavus L-morphotype, and A. oryzae. Divergence time inferred for A. flavus NRRL21882, the active agent of the biocontrol product Afla-Guard® , and S-morphotype was about 5.1 mya. Another biocontrol strain, A. flavus AF36, diverged from aflatoxigenic L-morphotype about 2.6 to 3.0 mya. Despite the close relatedness of A. oryzae to A. flavus, A. oryzae strains likely evolved from aflatoxigenic Aspergillus aflatoxiformans (=A. parvisclerotigenus). A survey of A. flavus populations implies that prior Afla-Guard® applications are associated with prevalence of NRRL21882-type isolates in Mississippi fields. In addition, a few NRRL21882 relatives were identified. A. flavus Og0222, a biocontrol ingredient of Aflasafe™, was verified as a NRRL21882-type strain, having identical sequence breakpoints that led to deletion of aflatoxin and cyclopiazonic acid gene clusters. A similar UPGMA analysis suggests that the occurrence of NRRL21882-type strains is a more recent event.

PMID: 33251654 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

Source: Industry