Taking a meta-view at Fusarium: breaking habits in order to fight contaminations by mycotoxins – TEAMTOX

The goal of the TEAMTOX proposal is to decipher the regulation of the biosynthesis of mycotoxins produced by a “Meta-Fusarium sp.”. A Meta-Fusarium sp., gathering the major Fusarium species involved in Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), will be considered in ecophysiology analyses as an individual fungus that operates as a whole. Indeed, while there is compelling evidence that interactions between Fusarium species drive the outcome of FHB in terms of symptoms and crop contamination with mycotoxins, mostly reductionist approaches have been implemented to address this important safety issue. It is also clear that Fusarium multispecies interactions goes beyond a merely ‘one plus one is two’ theorem. This statement implies a paradigm shift: single Fusarium species-centered approach must be surpassed. This challenge guides the TEAMTOX project which is structured around four operational work packages with the aim to: (1) characterize the kinetics of Fusarium species distribution and mycotoxin profiles by Meta-Fusarium sp. and the perturbations induced by temperature and oxidative stress parameters, (2) identify the molecular events that drive the production of mycotoxins by Meta-Fusarium sp., (3) evaluate the role of the intra-species diversity on the meta-Fusarium sp. dynamic and (4) assess the efficiency of biocontrol candidates which bioactivity has been previously demonstrated using single species-centered approaches and evidencing the added value of a meta-Fusarium sp. approach. We assume that the TEAMTOX’s strategy and outputs will pave the avenues for improved control strategies of FHB and mycotoxins.