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Teamtox is a one-team research project supported by ANR

Fusarium spp. are causal agents of Fusarium head blight (FHB), one of the most devastating fungal diseases affecting cereal crops. In addition to yield losses, some of these fungal species are responsible for grain contamination with mycotoxins that are a major health and food safety concern. Despite intensive research over the past decades and significant knowledge progress, recommended agronomic practices are not enough to guarantee mycotoxin levels complying with regulatory limits. Up to now, investigations aiming at providing bases for the development of mycotoxin control strategies were virtually exclusively conducted considering “one pathogen-one disease”, an approach that has proved itself insufficient to reach a comprehensive understanding of the FHB disease process and mycotoxin accumulation in crops. Indeed, the blend of Fusarium species in interaction inside a shared niche is likely to result in a production of mycotoxins having its own regulation that cannot be predicted by knowing what happens in single species cultures.

In this context, the goal of TEAMTOX is to decipher the regulation of the biosynthesis of mycotoxins produced by what we will call “Meta-Fusarium sp.”. Meta-Fusarium sp., comprising the major Fusarium species involved in FHB, will be considered in ecophysiology analyses as an individual fungus that operates as a whole. The approach underlying TEAMTOX shall pave avenues for improved FHB and mycotoxins control strategies.

More information (in french)