ITEM - Agro-Food microbial culture collection: the importance of toxigenic fungi in the fight against mycotoxins

Fungal culture collections are important to biologists, microbiologists,epidemiologists and others involved in health and natural sciences. Theimprovement of techniques and methods for fungal isolation and preservation hascontributed to maintain large microbial collections, which represent a rich sourceof biological sciences research, especially taxonomic, pathological and biodiversitystudies as well as industrial applications. The collection centers are responsiblefor repository reference strains and for the maintenance of these microorganisms.The ITEM Microbial Culture Collection of ISPA (Institute of Sciences and of FoodProduction) includes more than 10,000 strains belonging to various agro-food microorganismswith phytopathological and toxicological signi?cance. These microorganismsare mainly fungal pathogens belonging to toxigenic genera of Fusarium, Aspergillus, Alternaria and Penicillium. This collection is a remarkable resource inthe ?ght against mycotoxins: the increasing number of toxigenic fungi included inthis collection ensures an original genetic source for biotechnological applicationsin several ?elds of research, contributing to knowledge improvement about fungalbiology and strategies development for reducing mycotoxin contamination.