Mycokey: Importance of global networking of mycotoxigenic fungi.

Living biomass on the planet is represented for 50% by microorganisms that provide an important source of genetic information for both molecular biology and biotechnology. Fungi play a major bio-regulatory role in natural ecosystems and represent an extraordinary source of new compoundsof great ecological relevance. In particular, the toxigenic fungi (TF) produce a large seriesof secondary metabolites (SMs),that mayaccumulatein final products of agro-food plants. These compoundspossess a wide range of biological activities with a high impact on plant, human and animal health.An important category of these specialised metabolites are formed by mycotoxins, due to the detrimental effect on other organisms, including humans and animals. Therefore, incorrect identification of TFwill havenegative consequences on the accurate evaluation ofexposure risk for the consumption of contaminated food. Currently, many studies on the characterization of TFat genetic and biochemical level generate a huge amount of oftenunrelated and not well organized data. On the other hand, the scientific community can take advantagefrom both a more rational organization of such data and extensivesharing of the organismsthat produce these compounds. To further progress of the general knowledge on TF, fundamental steps are needed including reduction of overlaps and optimization of the efforts at global level.Tofacilitatemerging of informationand preservenatural biodiversity, important objects should be pursued such as: i) identification and characterization of TFs using a standard and polyphasic approach; ii) organization and sharingof data; iii) deposition of strains in well recognized Culture Collections. The Horizon 2020 EU project MycoKey(Grant 678781) aims to reduce mycotoxin contaminationinfood and feed crops. Among the activities inthe project, great attention is madeon thecarefuldeposition of toxigenic fungi and the harmonization ofrelevant information related to TFsand (changes in) their global occurrence. Datasets include genomic sequences and SMs annotations, DNA sequences, SMs profiles, and metadata on their geographic occurrence and ecological niches. Sharing knowledge and biological materials willultimately provide an effective contribution to mycotoxin risk management.