Halotolerant and halophilic melanized fungi were recently described in hypersaline waters. A close study of the sterol composition of such fungi, namely Hortaea werneckii, Alternaria alternata, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cladosporium sp., and Aureobasidium pullulans revealed the dominance of ergosterol and the presence of 29 intermediates of its biosynthesis pathway. The presence or absence o...

background: trichophyton tonsurans is one of the dermatophyte fungi which invades the skin and hair of human. several properties of this fungus have been investigated so far. however a few studies were carried out in the field of molecular biology of this fungus. in the present study, we tried to identify the squalene epoxidase gene which is related to synthesis of ergosterol in this fungus. me...

The aim of this study is to compare the production of biomass enriched with carotenoids and ergosterol by yeast strain Rhodotorula glutinis CCY 20-2-26 grown under optimal growth conditions and in the presence of exogenous stress factors. R. glutinis cells were exposed to UV irradiation, oxidative stress (2–10 mmol/L H2O2) and osmotic stress (2–10 % NaCl). During the experiment, growth characte...

In order to determine the regulation mechanisms of ergosterol biosynthesis in yeast, we developed growth conditions leading to high or limiting ergosterol levels in wild type and sterol-auxotrophic mutant strains. An excess of sterol is obtained in anaerobic sterol-supplemented cultures of mutant and wild type strains. A low sterol level is obtained in aerobic growth conditions in mutant strain...

BACKGROUND To achieve high-level production of non-native isoprenoid products, it requires the metabolic flux to be diverted from the production of sterols to the heterologous metabolic reactions. However, there are limited tools for restricting metabolic flux towards ergosterol synthesis. In the present study, we explored dynamic control of ERG9 expression using different ergosterol-responsive...

The study of ion channels and other membrane proteins and their potential use as biosensors and drug screening targets require their reconstitution in an artificial membrane. These applications would greatly benefit from microfabricated devices in which stable artificial lipid bilayers can be rapidly and reliably formed. However, the amount of protein delivered to the bilayer must be carefully ...

Mushroom Inonotus obliquus (I. obliquus) has been used as functional food and traditional Chinese herbs for long time. An efficient method for bioassay-guided preparative isolation was used for identifying the anti-inflammatory and anticancer constituents in I. obliquus. The petroleum ether and ethyl acetate fractions were found to have significant inhibition effects on NO production and NF-κB ...

As in other pathogenic fungi, the major sterol synthesized by Cryptococcus neoformans var. neoformans is ergosterol. This yeast also shares with most pathogenic fungi a susceptibility of its cytochrome P-450-dependent ergosterol synthesis to nanomolar concentrations of itraconazole. Fifty percent inhibition of ergosterol synthesis was reached after 16 h of growth in the presence of 6.0 +/- 4.7 ...

A family of aminoacyl alkyl citrate compounds called viridiofungins, are novel squalene synthase inhibitors. The compounds have broad spectrum fungicidal activity but lack antibacterial activity. Although the compounds inhibit squalene synthase, the first committed step in ergosterol biosynthesis, results presented in this paper show that inhibition of fungal growth is not related to inhibition...

The addition of ergosterol to cultures of Tetrahymena pyriformis results in (a) the accumulation of the sterol by the cells; (b) the inhibition of the synthesis of the pentacyclic triterpenoid alcohol, tetrahymanol; (c) the replacement of tetrahymanol by ergosterol in the ciliate membranes. The dry weight and lipid content of sterol-supplemented ciliates did not differ from the controls. Examin...