**1. Introduction**

Mycotoxins produced by fungi of the genus *Fusarium* have the universal distribution, and economic importance given their toxicity for animals, humans and plant pathogens, which infect and colonize various cereal crops such as maize, rice, wheat and oats in temperate and semitropical areas. Among the mycotoxin-producing species are *F. sporotrichioides*, *F. graminearum* and *F. verticillioides*, which produce toxins such as zearalenone, zearalene, deoxynivalenol or nivalenol, T-2 toxin and diacetoxyscirpenol [1]. These toxins generate diverse diseases to crops

Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons

and contamination to diverse types of cereals mainly to maize being of toxicological concern the ear rot [2]. Therefore, the contamination prevention could be generated by the biosynthesis the *Fusarium* during the crop. Then, the development of *Fusarium* can be triggered by the environmental conditions, agricultural practices and range of susceptibility [3]. Biochemical resistance is directly associated with specific proteins and metabolites that focus on the biosynthetic analysis of mycotoxins explaining the sporadic occurrence of the mycotoxins as fungal metabolites. Several studies indicate that secondary metabolites present in cereals can modulate the production of mycotoxins, and these are important in plant response to fungal contaminations, such as, the phenolic compounds that control or prevent the response to mycotoxins [4]. Phenolic acids, including ferulic acid, tannins and proanthocyanidins, are the most abundant in cereal showing the highest potential to function as fungal growth inhibitor [1, 3]. In this sense, the objective of this chapter is the review of the main mycotoxins of the genus *Fusarium* that affects cereals, as well as the production of secondary metabolites that can modulate their production. The above will gather relevant information on possible inhibition options in cereal contamination by mycotoxins of the genus *Fusarium*, including major mycotoxin-producing species, cereal contamination by mycotoxins (economic losses, implications to food safety and health), cereal secondary metabolites with antifungal activity and possible mechanisms that modulate inhibition of mycotoxin production of *Fusarium* species.
