Abstract
The filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum abundantly secretes the small, highly basic and cysteine-rich protein PAF (Penicillium antifungal protein). In this study, the antifungal activity of PAF is described. PAF inhibited the growth of a variety of filamentous fungi, including opportunistic human pathogenic and phytopathogenic fungi, whereas bacterial and yeast cells were unaffected. PAF reduced the conidial germination and hyphal extension rates in a dose-dependent manner and induced severe changes in cell morphology that resulted in crippled and distorted hyphae and atypical branching. Growth-affected hyphae suffered from oxidative stress, plasma membrane leakage, and metabolic inactivity, which points to an induction of multifactorial effects in sensitive fungi. In contrast to other known antifungal proteins, the effects of PAF were only partially antagonized by cations.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Martin Kirchmair and Reinhard Würzner for providing fungal strains, and Hubertus Haas and Bernhard Redl for helpful discussions. This work was funded by the Austria Science Foundation (grant FWF P15261 to F. M.).
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Kaiserer, L., Oberparleiter, C., Weiler-Görz, R. et al. Characterization of the Penicillium chrysogenum antifungal protein PAF. Arch Microbiol 180, 204–210 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-003-0578-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-003-0578-8