Problems in cereal resistance to toxigenic Fusarium species

Summary

In future the current molecular methods will be improved, validated and
automated, making it possible to use them in the routine identification, detection and
quantification of Fusarium species for e.g. resistance studies. Molecular analyses
require expensive equipment, but they allow quicker and more reliable identification
with fewer people than traditional morphological identification. Internal standards
should also be used in future to discriminate between uninfected samples and possible
PCR inhibition (Waalwijk et al., 2004). The computer analysis of molecular data is also
expected to improve and the total amount of sequence data in the databases will
increase. The whole genome of F. graminearum, for instance, has already been
sequenced (Guldener et al. 2006; Cuomo et al., 2007). The sequenced genome of
Brachypodium The International Brachypodium Intitiative, 2010) will also help
researchers in investigating the resistance in the subfamily Pooidae, including wheat,
barley, rye and oat.