Fusarium proliferatum (teleomorph: Gibberella intermedia) is a causal agent of crown rot of Asparagus officinalis and is one potential fumonisin-producing species within the genus Fusarium. It colonizes roots and crowns of asparagus plants, but could also be isolated from symptomless asparagus spears. Fusarium proliferatum isolates obtained from perennial asparagus plantings from Austria and Germany were included in a study on detectability and variability of two essential genes of the fumonisin-gene cluster. Genetic fingerprinting of 45 isolates revealed 14 different fingerprint groups, indicating genetic heterogenicity of F. proliferatum. Most isolates differentiated into three main fingerprint clusters, but no association was found between fingerprint group and origin of the isolates. By gene-specific PCR it was shown that, in 25 isolates tested, both initial genes of the fumonisin biosynthetic pathway -FUM1, encoding a polyketide synthase and FUM8, a gene for a putative aminoacyl transferase -were detectable. This suggests that these isolates were able to produce fumonisins and could contribute to the detected contamination in originating asparagus spears with this mycotoxin. Thus, early detection of FUM-genes in F. proliferatum-colonized asparagus may be suited to prevent uptake of fumonisin contaminated food with the human diet. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (PCR-RFLP) of the amplified FUM gene fragments revealed little sequence variability, suggesting a conserved structure of these genes within this species. However, sequence analysis confirmed intraspecific nucleotide polymorphisms of these genes.

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European white elms (Ulmus laevis Pall.) growing in a park in Caputh near Berlin (Germany) were regularly monitored over a period of 18 years showing virus infection-like symptoms such as chloroses, chlorotic ringspots, mottling and dieback. To obtain the evidence for viral infection, RNA-seq using an Illumina Hi Seq2500 was conducted and three contigs were obtained. They match with the three EMoV genomic RNAs and cover the open reading frames for the viral replicase, the polymerase and the movement and coat proteins (MP, CP). The contigs show identities of 95.3–96.4%, 91.9–93.3% and 89.0–92.5% at the nucleotide level with RNA 1, RNA 2 and RNA 3 of reference sequences, respectively. The analyses of the MP and CP showed significant differences in amino acid sequence compositions compared to those of reference EMoV sequences. These results demonstrate the presence of a so far unknown isolate of EMoV. This is the first report of sequence data of EMoV infecting U. laevis.