Fusarium sporotrichioides

Fusarium sporotrichioides is a fungal plant pathogen, one of various Fusarium species responsible for damaging crops, in particular causing a condition known as Fusarium head blight in wheat, consequently being of notable agricultural and economic importance. The species is ecologically widespread, being found across tropical and temperate regions, and is a significant producer of mycotoxins, particularly trichothecenes. Although mainly infecting crops, F. sporotrichioides-derived mycotoxins can have repercussions for human health in the case of the ingestion of infected cereals. One such example includes the outbreak of alimentary toxic aleukia (ATA) in Russia, of which F. sporotrichioides-infected crop was suspected to be the cause. Although current studies on F. sporotrichioides are somewhat limited in comparison to other species in the genus, Fusarium sporotrichioides has found several applications as a model system for experimentation in molecular biology. The genus Fusarium was first characterised by the German botanist Johann Link in 1809, prior to the recognition of fungal involvement in plant disease. Over a thousand different species of Fusarium were identified by the 1930s, however, upon further analysis, these were narrowed down to 65 different species. Despite this reduction in the recognised number of species, differentiating one from the other remained difficult and unclear. Lacking a satisfactory system of classification and identification with which to organise these many, seemingly similar Fusarium species, the mycologists Snyder and Hansen collected samples of various fusaria from laboratories worldwide, isolated single spores and cultured them for subsequent analysis of their genetic variation. Their work indicated the existence of 9 distinct species of Fusarium, but there have since been several different classification systems that reach different conclusions, and consensus around this has been difficult to establish, perhaps in part because research focuses predominantly on the agriculturally or botanically more significant fusaria.