Alteration of Carbohydrate Metabolism in Fusarium Infected Wheat Kernels Treated with Fungicides and Its Relation to Baking Technological Parameters and Deoxynivalenol Contamination

Abstract

Changes of water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content such as fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, nystose, raffinose, stachyose and fructan were analyzed in wheat kernels in Fusarium epidemic and non-epidemic seasons. In both season types, eight commercial fungicides were applied and three wheat varieties with differing Fusarium resistance were tested. In the epidemic year, the average total amount of WSC was above 1.6% which was 2 times higher than in the non-epidemic year (0.7%). Sucrose, maltose, raffinose and fructan components determined the increased WSC value, but the most substantial change was observed in maltose content where its average amount was 28 times higher in the epidemic year. Fungicide application also significantly increased all the carbohydrate components except maltose, where significant reduction was observed. WSC components had strong correlation with several farinograph or extensograph parameters, but only the maltose content showed positive strong correlation (r = 0.9) with deoxynivalenol (DON) toxin that was highly affected by the applied fungicide. The changes of WSC indicate altered carbohydrate synthesis along with abnormal degradation processes and thus have impaction on the baking features. It seems that the sugar metabolism interacts with DON synthesis and the results give important additional information to the altered metabolism of the attacked plant.

What Is Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) Resistance and What Are Its Food Safety Risks in Wheat? Problems and Solutions—A Review

“…De Santis et al [78] screened 5753 publication and selected 176 papers for evaluation for mycotoxins as biomarker data in human populations. Of the Fusarium toxins, more than four countries had DON, FBs, ZEN, and OTA, and the most mycotoxins were found in Germany (7), Estonia (6), Italy (5), and Sweden (5). One mycotoxin per country was detected in Austria, Croatia, Norway, and Great Britain.…”

“…As many Fusarium species are involved, it is essential to understand whether FHB resistance has a common resistance to all Fusarium species, or whether different genes regulate resistance to different species. I suspect that common resistance is the consensus in the research [ 4 , 5 ], but only a few papers support this [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. The resistance mechanisms can be divided into active and passive (morphology based) forms [ 7 ].…”