There is little knowledge of the microbial diversity, mycotoxins and associated secondary metabolites in GM maize and isogenic non-GM cultivars (cvs). This study has quantified the microbial populations and dominant fungal genera in 6 cvs of each type representative of herbicide, pesticide or stacked resistance to both. The predominant mycotoxins and targeted metabolomics profiles were also compared between the two sets of cvs. This showed that the overall fungal populations were 8.8 CFUs g⁻¹ maize. The dominant genera, isolated from maize samples, whether surface-sterilised or not, in all maize cvs were Fusarium, followed by Penicillium, Aspergillus and occasionally Cladosporium and Alternaria. The analysis of the targeted metabolomics showed that approx. 29 different metabolites were detected. These were dominated by fumonisins and minor Penicillium spp. metabolites (questiomycin A and rugulovasine A). Interestingly, the range and number of mycotoxins present in the GM cvs were significantly lower than in the non-GM maize samples. This suggests that while the fungal diversity of the two types of maize appeared to be very similar, the major contaminant mycotoxins and range of toxic secondary metabolites were much lower in the GM cvs.

对于转基因玉米和同基因非转基因品种 (cvs) 中的微生物多样性、霉菌毒素和相关次生代谢物知之甚少。这项研究量化了每种类型的 6 个品种中的微生物种群和优势真菌属，代表除草剂、杀虫剂或对两者的叠加抗性。还比较了两组 cv 之间的主要霉菌毒素和目标代谢组学特征。这表明总体真菌种群为 8.8 CFU g ⁻¹玉米。从玉米样品中分离出来的优势属，无论是否经过表面灭菌，在所有玉米品种中都是镰刀菌属，其次是青霉属、曲霉属，偶尔还有枝孢属和链格孢属。目标代谢组学分析表明，大约。检测到 29 种不同的代谢物。这些主要是伏马菌素和次要的青霉属。代谢物（questiomycin A 和 rugulovasine A）。有趣的是，转基因玉米样品中存在的霉菌毒素的范围和数量显着低于非转基因玉米样品。这表明，虽然两种玉米的真菌多样性似乎非常相似，但转基因玉米中的主要污染物霉菌毒素和有毒次生代谢物范围要低得多。