Comparative analysis of 87,000 expressed sequence tags from the fumonisin-producing fungus Fusarium verticillioides

Fusarium verticillioides (teleomorph Gibberella moniliformis) is a pathogen of maize worldwide and produces fumonisins, a family of mycotoxins that have been associated with several animal diseases as well as cancer in humans. In this study, we sought to identify fungal genes that affect fumonisin production and/or the plant-fungal interaction. We generated over 87,000 expressed sequence tags from nine different cDNA libraries that correspond to 11,119 unique sequences and are estimated to represent 80% of the genomic complement of genes. A comparative analysis of the libraries showed that all 15 genes in the fumonisin gene cluster were differentially expressed. In addition, nine candidate fumonisin regulatory genes and a number of genes that may play a role in plant-fungal interaction were identified. Analysis of over 700 FUM gene transcripts from five different libraries provided evidence for transcripts with unspliced introns and spliced introns with alternative 3' splice sites. The abundance of the alternative splice forms and the frequency with which they were found for genes involved in the biosynthesis of a single family of metabolites as well as their differential expression suggest they may have a biological function. Finally, analysis of an EST that aligns to genomic sequence between FUM12 and FUM13 provided evidence for a previously unidentified gene (FUM20) in the FUM gene cluster.