Abstract
Production of ergot alkaloids in the opportunistic fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus is restricted to conidiating cultures. These cultures typically accumulate several pathway intermediates at concentrations comparable to that of the pathway end product. We investigated the contribution of different cell types that constitute the multicellular conidiophore of A. fumigatus to the production of ergot alkaloid pathway intermediates versus the pathway end product, fumigaclavine C. A relatively minor share (11 %) of the ergot alkaloid yield on a molar basis was secreted into the medium, whereas the remainder was associated with the conidiating colonies. Entire conidiating cultures (containing hyphae, vesicle of conidiophore, phialides of conidiophore, and conidia) accumulated higher levels of the pathway intermediate festuclavine and lower levels of the pathway end product fumigaclavine C than did isolated, abscised conidia, indicating that conidiophores and/or hyphae have a quantitatively different ergot alkaloid profile compared to that of conidia. Differences in alkaloid accumulation among cell types also were indicated by studies with conidiophore development mutants. A ∆medA mutant, in which conidiophores are numerous but develop poorly, accumulated higher levels of pathway intermediates than did the wildtype or a complemented ∆medA mutant. A ∆stuA mutant, which grows mainly as hyphae and produces very few, abnormal conidiophores, produced no detectable ergot alkaloids. The data indicated heterogeneous spatial distribution of ergot alkaloid pathway intermediates versus pathway end product in conidiating cultures of A. fumigatus. This skewed distribution may reflect differences in abundance or activity of pathway enzymes among cell types of those conidiating cultures.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Grants 2008-35318-04549 and 2012-67013-19384 from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and published with permission of the West Virginia Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station as scientific article number 3175. We thank Sarah Robinson and Katy Ryan for technical assistance and Scott Bowdridge for assistance with microscopy.
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Mulinti, P., Allen, N.A., Coyle, C.M. et al. Accumulation of Ergot Alkaloids During Conidiophore Development in Aspergillus fumigatus . Curr Microbiol 68, 1–5 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-013-0434-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-013-0434-2