Abstract
Melanin is a natural pigment present in almost all biological groups, and is composed of indolic polymers and characterized by black-brown colorization. Furthermore, it is one of the pigments produced by extremophiles including those living in the Antarctic desert, and is mainly involved in their protection from high UV radiation, desiccation, salinity and oxidation. Previous studies have shown that melanized species have an increased capability to survive high level of radiation compared with the non-melanized counterpart. Understanding the molecular composition of fungal melanin could help to understand this peculiar capability. Here, we aimed to characterize the melanin pigment extracted from the Antarctic black fungus Cryomyces antarcticus, which is a good test model for radioprotection researches, by studying its chemical properties and spectral data. Our results demonstrated that, in spite of having a specific type of melanin as the majority of fungi, the fungus possesses the ability to produce both 1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene (DHN) and l 3-4 dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA) melanins, opening interesting scenarios for the protection role against radiation. Researches on fungal melanin have a huge application in different fields, including radioprotection, bioremediation, and biomedical applications.
Key Points
• Isolation and characterization by multidisciplinary approaches of fungal melanins.
• Discovery that pathways for producing DOPA and DHN are both active even in its extreme habitat.
• Hypothesis supporting the possibility of using melanin pigment for radioprotection.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the CERIC-ERIC Consortium for the access to experimental facilities and financial support and the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA), Section of Mycology, for making available the strain of C. antarcticus. MS and DG acknowledge the financial support from Romanian Ministry of Research and Innovation in the frame of the Core Program PN19-03 (contract no. 21 N/08.02.2019).
Funding
This work was funded by ASI grant (ASI N. 2019-3-U.0, Life in Space). This work was performed also in the frame of Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure. Europlanet 2020 RI has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208.
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CP, AC, and SO designed the research; CP, AC, AM, FG, MS, and DG performed the analysis; CP, AC, AM, AMT, FG, BC, MS, DG, and SO analysed and interpreted the data. SO provided funding acquisition, project administration, and resources. CP wrote a first draft of the manuscript, which was corrected, revised, and approved by all authors.
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Pacelli, C., Cassaro, A., Maturilli, A. et al. Multidisciplinary characterization of melanin pigments from the black fungus Cryomyces antarcticus. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 104, 6385–6395 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10666-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10666-0