How environmental stresses affect aspergillus flavus metabolism.

Aspergillus flavus is a saprophytic fungus responsible for world-wide spread harvest and post-harvest infections on cultivations, mainly on cereal grains and legumes. A. flavus is one of the main producers of aflatoxins, the most dangerous carcinogenic metabolites in nature. In order to effectively address the economic and sanitary consequences of A.flavus contamination, a detailed and extensive knowledge of the pathogen metabolism and of the environmental conditions, that trigger the different biological processes, is of paramount importance. We investigated how some biological processes (Starvation, Oxidant and Hypoxia conditions) affected A. flavus mycelial growth, conidiogenesis and aflatoxin synthesis.