Received 1 April 2004 Revised 16 June 2004 Accepted 24 June 2004 In the mycotoxigenic oilseed pathogens Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus and the model filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, unsaturated fatty acids and their derivatives act as important developmental signals that affect asexual conidiospore, sexual ascospore and/or sclerotial development. To dissect the relations...

Asexual development (conidiation) in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans is governed by orchestrated gene expression. The three key negative regulators of conidiation SfgA, VosA, and NsdD act at different control point in the developmental genetic cascade. Here, we have revealed that NsdD is a key repressor affecting the quantity of asexual spores in Aspergillus. Moreover, nullifying bo...

The authors have previously reported on molecular responses of Aspergillus nidulans to bacterial antifungal metabolites, e.g. bafilomycins and the related concanamycins. These compounds are known inhibitors of V-ATPases and cause dramatic effects on mycelial growth and morphology. In Neurospora crassa, studies have shown that disruption of the gene encoding subunit A of the V-ATPase results in ...

The gliotoxin, a member of the epipolythiodioxopiperazine (ETP), has received considerable attention from the scientific community for its wide range of biological activity. Despite the identification of gliotoxin cluster, however, the sequence of steps in the gliotoxin biosynthesis has remained elusive. As an alternative to the gene knock-out and biochemical approaches used so far, here we rep...

Germ-tube emergence in Aspergillus nidulans exhibits partial synchrony. Germ tubes were first detected at 210 min. after inoculation of spores into a liquid medium. Almost all spores produced germ tubes within 360 min., 4 9 3 % of them doing so between 240 and 300 min. Increase in dry weight was first detected at 120 min. and various constituents at the following times: RNA (30 min.), Kjeldahl ...

Mutations in the gene uvsH of Aspergillus nidulans result in increased spontaneous chromosome instability and increased intragenic and intergenic mitotic recombination in homozygous diploids. The aim of the present work was to obtain a uvs mutant of A. nidulans and to use it for the isolation of asexual recombinants (parameiotic segregants). The mutant uvsH, named B511, showed normal frequency ...

To spatially resolve genetic differences at the cellular level, the laser-capture microdissection technique was developed. With this method cells can be cut from tissues with a laser beam and analyzed for DNA, RNA or protein composition. Here we adapted the technique to isolate septal microtubule-organizing center (MTOC)-associated proteins in Aspergillus nidulans About 3000 septa were collecte...

The growth kinetics of Aspergillus nidulans, Mucor hiemalis and Penicillium chrysogenum on solid media and in submerged culture were studied. Growth of A. nidulans colonies on solid medium can be divided into the four phases of lag, exponential, deceleration and constant growth rate. The growth kinetics of A. nidulans in submerged culture were similar to those commonly found for unicellular mic...

Four new quinazolinone alkaloids, namely, aniquinazolines A-D (1-4), were isolated and identified from the culture of Aspergillus nidulans MA-143, an endophytic fungus obtained from the leaves of marine mangrove plant Rhizophora stylosa. The structures of the new compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis, and their absolute configurations were determined on the basis of chiral HPLC an...

Motivated by the observation that the Aspergillus nidulans genome bears multiple anthranilic acid synthase gene copies, the fungal metabolome was reinvestigated under various fermentation conditions, resulting in the discovery of novel prenylated quinolin-2-one alkaloids, two of which bear unprecedented terpenoid side chains.