Screening of Genes Encoding for Dicer Like Protein Dcl 1 and Dcl 2 in Aspergillus Flavus and their Possible Role in Aflatoxin Biosynthesis

Abstract

Aspergillus flavus is major producer of aflatoxin, is involved in contamination of agronomically important crops like peanuts, corn and maize. Aflatoxins are carcinogenic and after entering body, they are metabolized by liver to reactive epoxide intermediate which affects the liver. Presence of DCL-1 and DCL-2 genes was screened in two fungal isolates MTCC-AF 9367 which is aflatoxin producer and MTCC-11580 which is non aflatoxin producer grown at two temperature to establish relationship between tempertaure and aflatoxin production and expression of these genes. Primers specific to both these genes were used for seeing the differential expression using semi quantitative PCR. It was seen that DCL-1 was expressed differentially in MTCC-AF9367 grown at 30 °C(temperature which supports the production of aflatoxin) and DCL-2 expression was difficult to differentiate in MTCC-AF9367 grown at 30°C and 37°C but it was more in MTCC-11580 at 37°C giving us insight that DCL-1 is associated with aflatoxin producing strain and DCL-2 was associated with both MTCC-AF9367 and MTCC-11580.