Abstract
Conidia are asexual spores and play a crucial role in fungal dissemination. Conidial pigmentation is important for tolerance against UV radiation and contributes to survival of fungi. The molecular basis of conidial pigmentation has been studied in several fungal species. In spite of sharing the initial common step of polyketide formation, other steps for pigment biosynthesis appear to be species-dependent. In this study, we isolated an Aspergillus flavus spontaneous mutant that produced yellow conidia. The underlying genetic defect, a three-nucleotide in-frame deletion in the gene, AFLA_051390, that encodes a copper-transporting ATPase, was identified by a comparative genomics approach. This genetic association was confirmed by disruption of the wild-type gene. When yellow mutants were grown on medium supplemented with copper ions or chloride ions, green conidial color was partially and nearly completely restored, respectively. Further disruption of AFLA_045660, an orthologue of Aspergillus nidulans yA (yellow pigment) that encodes a multicopper oxidase, in wild type and a derived strain producing dark green conidia showed that it yielded mutants that produced gold conidia. The results placed formation of the gold pigment after that of the yellow pigment and before that of the dark green pigment. Using reported inhibitors of DHN-melanin (tricyclazole and phthalide) and DOPA-melanin (tropolone and kojic acid) pathways on a set of conidial color mutants, we investigated the involvement of melanin biosynthesis in A. flavus conidial pigment formation. Results imply that both pathways have no bearing on conidial pigment biosynthesis of A. flavus.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bankevich A, Nurk S, Antipov D, Gurevich AA, Dvorkin M, Kulikov AS, Lesin VM, Nikolenko SI, Pham S, Prjibelski AD, Pyshkin AV, Sirotkin AV, Vyahhi N, Tesler G, Alekseyev MA, Pevzner PA (2012) SPAdes: a new genome assembly algorithm and its applications to single-cell sequencing. J Comput Biol 19:455–477
Bell AA, Wheeler MH (1986) Biosynthesis and functions of fungal melanins. Annu Rev Phytopathol 24:411–451
Bushnell B (2016) "BBMap short read aligner." University of California, Berkeley, California. URL http://sourceforge net/projects/bbmap
Cary JW, Harris-Coward PY, Ehrlich KC, Di Mavungu JD, Malysheva SV, De Saeger S, Dowd PF, Shantappa S, Martens SL, Calvo AM (2014) Functional characterization of a veA-dependent polyketide synthase gene in Aspergillus flavus necessary for the synthesis of asparasone, a sclerotium-specific pigment. Fungal Genet Biol 64:25–35
Caten CE (1979) Genetic determination of conidial colour in Aspergillus heterocaryoticus and relationship of this species to Aspergillus amstelodami. Trans Br Mycol Soc 73(1):65–74
Chang P-K, Horn BW, Dorner JW (2005) Sequence breakpoints in the aflatoxin biosynthesis gene cluster and flanking regions in nonaflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus isolates. Fungal Genet Biol 42:914–923
Chang P-K, Scharfenstein LL, Wei Q, Bhatnagar D (2010) Development and refinement of a high-efficiency gene-targeting system for Aspergillus flavus. J Microbiol Methods 81:240–246
Chrysayi Tokousbalides M, Sisler HD (1979) Site of inhibition by tricyclazole in the melanin biosynthetic pathway of Verticillium dahliae. Pestic Biochem Physiol 11:64–73
Cingolani P, Platts A, Wang le L, Coon M, Nguyen T, Wang L, Land SJ, Lu X, Ruden DM (2012) A program for annotating and predicting the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms, SnpEff: SNPs in the genome of Drosophila melanogaster strain w1118; iso-2; iso-3. Fly (Austin) 6:80–92
Clutterbuck AJ (1972) Absence of laccase from yellow-spored mutants of Aspergillus nidulans. J Gen Microbiol 70:423–435
Clutterbuck AJ (1990) The genetics of conidiophore pigmentation in Aspergillus nidulans. J Gen Microbiol 136:1731–1738
Cordero RJB, Casadevall A (2017) Functions of fungal melanin beyond virulence. Fungal Biol Rev 31:99–112
Fujii I, Yasuoka Y, Tsai HF, Chang YC, Kwon-Chung KJ, Ebizuka Y (2004) Hydrolytic polyketide shortening by Ayg1p, a novel enzyme involved in fungal melanin biosynthesis. J Biol Chem 279:44613–44620
Garrison E, Gabor M (2012) "Haplotype-based variant detection from short-read sequencing." arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.3907
Gaxiola RA, Yuan DS, Klausner RD, Fink GR (1998) The yeast CLC chloride channel functions in cation homeostasis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95:4046–4050
Geib E, Brock M (2017) Comment on: “Melanisation of Aspergillus terreus-Is Butyrolactone I Involved in the Regulation of Both DOPA and DHN Types of Pigments in Submerged Culture? Microorganisms 2017, 5, 22”. Microorganisms 5:34
Geib E, Gressler M, Viediernikova I, Hillmann F, Jacobsen ID, Nietzsche S, Hertweck C, Brock M (2016) A non-canonical melanin biosynthesis pathway protects Aspergillus terreus conidia from environmental stress. Cell Chem Biol 23:587–597
Griffith GW, Easton GL, Detheridge A, Roderick K, Edwards A, Worgan HJ, Nicholson J, Perkins WT (2007) Copper deficiency in potato dextrose agar causes reduced pigmentation in cultures of various fungi. FEMS Microbiol Lett 276:165–171
Ha Huy K, Luckner M (1979) Structure and function of the conidiospore pigments of Penicillium cyclopium. Z Allg Mikrobiol 19:117–122
Horng JS, Chang PK, Pestka JJ, Linz JE (1990) Development of a homologous transformation system for Aspergillus parasiticus with the gene encoding nitrate reductase. Mol Gen Genet 224:294–296
Hua SS, McAlpin CE, Chang P-K, Sarreal SB (2012) Characterization of aflatoxigenic and non-aflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus isolates from pistachio. Mycotoxin Res 28:67–75
Jentsch TJ, Friedrich T, Schriever A, Yamada H (1999) The CLC chloride channel family. Pflugers Arch 437:783–795
Jorgensen TR, Park J, Arentshorst M, van Welzen AM, Lamers G, Vankuyk PA, Damveld RA, van den Hondel CA, Nielsen KF, Frisvad JC, Ram AF (2011) The molecular and genetic basis of conidial pigmentation in Aspergillus niger. Fungal Genet Biol 48:544–553
Kubodera T, Yamashita N, Nishimura A (2000) Pyrithiamine resistance gene (ptrA) of Aspergillus oryzae: cloning, characterization and application as a dominant selectable marker for transformation. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem 64:1416–1421
Kurtz MB, Champe SP (1981) Dominant spore color mutants of Aspergillus nidulans defective in germination and sexual development. J Bacteriol 148:629–638
Lawton TJ, Sayavedra-Soto LA, Arp DJ, Rosenzweig AC (2009) Crystal structure of a two-domain multicopper oxidase: implications for the evolution of multicopper blue proteins. J Biol Chem 284:10174–10180
Li H (2013) Aligning sequence reads, clone sequences and assembly contigs with BWA-MEM. arXiv preprint arXiv 303.3997
Motoyama T, Yamaguchi I (2003) Fungicides, melanin biosynthesis inhibitors. In: Plimmer JR, Ragsdale NN, Gammon D (eds) Encyclopedia of agrochemicals, vol 3. Wiley, Hoboken
Murakami H, Owaki K, Takase S (1966) An aflatoxin strain ATCC 15517. J Gen Appl Microbiol 12:195–206
Oddon DM, Diatloff E, Roberts SK (2007) A CLC chloride channel plays an essential role in copper homeostasis in Aspergillus nidulans at increased extracellular copper concentrations. Biochim Biophys Acta 1768:2466–2477
O'Hara EB, Timberlake WE (1989) Molecular characterization of the Aspergillus nidulans yA locus. Genetics 121:249–254
Pal AK, Gajjar DU, Vasavada AR (2014) DOPA and DHN pathway orchestrate melanin synthesis in Aspergillus species. Med Mycol 52:10–18
Papa KE (1973) The parasexual cycle in Aspergillus flavus. Mycologia 65:1201–1205
Raper KB, Thom CA (1968) A manual of the penicilla. Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, USA
Saitoh Y, Izumitsu K, Atsushi Morita A, Kiminori Shimizu K, Chihiro Tanaka C (2012) Cloning of sal1, a scytalone dehydratase gene involved in melanin biosynthesis in Cochliobolus heterostrophus. Mycoscience 53:330–334
Skory CD, Horng JS, Pestka JJ, Linz JE (1990) Transformation of Aspergillus parasiticus with a homologous gene (pyrG) involved in pyrimidine biosynthesis. Appl Environ Microbiol 56:3315–3320
Sonnhammer EL, von Heijne G, Krogh A (1998) A hidden Markov model for predicting transmembrane helices in protein sequences. Proc Int Conf Intell Syst Mol Biol 6:175–182
Szewczyk E, Nayak T, Oakley CE, Edgerton H, Xiong Y, Taheri-Talesh N, Osmani SA, Oakley BR (2006) Fusion PCR and gene targeting in Aspergillus nidulans. Nat Protoc 1:3111–3120
Takagi Y (1957) Studies on the conidial colour change in Aspergillus fungi. Part II. The role of copper and halogen ions in the formation of green conidia. J Gen Appl Microbiol 3:269–275
Takagi Y, Sakaguchi K (1957) Studies on the conidial colour change in Aspergillus fungi. Part I. Physiological modification of a genetic block between yellow and green color development. J Gen Appl Microbiol 3:125–136
Teertstra WR, Tegelaar M, Dijksterhuis J, Golovina EA, Ohm RA, Wosten HAB (2017) Maturation of conidia on conidiophores of Aspergillus niger. Fungal Genet Biol 98:61–70
Tsai HF, Washburn RG, Chang YC, Kwon-Chung KJ (1997) Aspergillus fumigatus arp1 modulates conidial pigmentation and complement deposition. Mol Microbiol 26:175–183
Tsai HF, Wheeler MH, Chang YC, Kwon-Chung KJ (1999) A developmentally regulated gene cluster involved in conidial pigment biosynthesis in Aspergillus fumigatus. J Bacteriol 181:6469–6477
Varga J, Frisvad JC, Samson RA (2011) Two new aflatoxin producing species, and an overview of Aspergillus section Flavi. Stud Mycol 69:57–80
Watanabe A, Fujii I, Tsai H, Chang YC, Kwon-Chung KJ, Ebizuka Y (2000) Aspergillus fumigatus alb1 encodes naphthopyrone synthase when expressed in Aspergillus oryzae. FEMS Microbiol Lett 192:39–44
Wheeler MH, Klich MA (1995) The effects of tricyclazole, pyroquilon, phthalide, and related fungicides on the production of conidial wall pigments by Penicillium and Aspergillus species. Pestic Biochem Physiol 52:125–136
Yu X, Huo L, Liu H, Chen L, Wang Y, Zhu X (2015) Melanin is required for the formation of the multi-cellular conidia in the endophytic fungus Pestalotiopsis microspora. Microbiol Res 179:1–11
Zhu C, Jiang N, Xiao D, Pan J, Zhu X (2010) Chloride channel-dependent copper acquisition of laccase in the basidiomycetous fungus Cryptococcus neoformans. Sci China Life Sci 53:125–130
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
This article does not contain studies with human participants or animals.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(PDF 405 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chang, PK., Scharfenstein, L.L., Mack, B. et al. Identification of a copper-transporting ATPase involved in biosynthesis of A. flavus conidial pigment. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 103, 4889–4897 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-09820-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-09820-0