Conidial head on malt extract agar (MEA). Inset: 5-day old colonies on (counter-clockwise from left) yeast extract sucrose (YES), MEA, and Czapek yeast extract agar (CYA) substrate. Photo credit: Massimo Ferrara from CNR-ISPA.

Aspergillus carbonarius ITEM 12550 was sequenced with an aim of resequencing this important species contaminating grapes in order to compare differences across natural strains isolated from different geographic origins. This strain was isolated from a sample of dried vine fruit sultana (Turkey) and is a good ochratoxin A (OTA) producer. It was molecularly characterized in a survey from dried vine fruit samples of worldwide origin including Turkey, Chile, Iran, USA, China and South Africa (Susca et al., 2013).