Unveiling the fungal diversity and associated secondary metabolism on black apples.

Black apples are the result of late-stage microbial decomposition after falling to the ground. This phenomenon is highly comparable from year to year, with the filamentous fungus most commonly being the first invader, followed by . Motivated by the fact that only little chemistry has been reported from apple microbiomes, we set out to investigate the chemical diversity and potential ecological roles of secondary metabolites (SMs) in a total of 38 black apples.

A novel contaminant in museums? A cross-sectional study on xerophilic Aspergillus growth in climate-controlled repositories.

In the last decade, extensive fungal growth has developed in Danish museums parallel to climate change, challenging occupational health and heritage preservation. The growth was unexpected as the museums strived to control relative humidity below 60 %, and it should exceed 75 % to risk growth. A Danish case study found xerophilic Aspergillus species able to grow at low relative humidity in a museum repository.

Comparative genomic study of the Penicillium genus elucidates a diverse pangenome and 15 lateral gene transfer events.

The Penicillia are known to produce a wide range natural products-some with devastating outcome for the agricultural industry and others with unexploited potential in different applications. However, a large-scale overview of the biosynthetic potential of different species has been lacking. In this study, we sequenced 93 Penicillium isolates and, together with eleven published genomes that hold similar assembly characteristics, we established a species phylogeny as well as defining a Penicillium pangenome.

Deep Genotypic Species Delimitation of Section Isolated from Brazilian Foodstuffs and the Description of sp. nov. and sp. nov.

section is a fungal group that is important in food because it contains spoilage and potentially aflatoxigenic species. Aflatoxins are metabolites that are harmful to human and animal health and have been recognized as the primary natural contaminant in food. Therefore, recognizing the biodiversity of this group in food is necessary to reduce risks to public health.

Production of Fungal Quinones: Problems and Prospects.

Fungal quinones can be used for a variety of applications, such as pharmaceuticals, food colorants, textile dyes, and battery electrolytes. However, when producing quinones by fungal cultivation, many considerations arise regarding the feasibility of a production system, such as the quinone yield, purity, ease of extraction, and the co-production of mycotoxins. In this work, we display the initial screening of filamentous fungi for quinone production and evaluate their potential for future optimization.

Microbiome Research as an Effective Driver of Success Stories in Agrifood Systems - A Selection of Case Studies.

Increasing knowledge of the microbiome has led to significant advancements in the agrifood system. Case studies based on microbiome applications have been reported worldwide and, in this review, we have selected 14 success stories that showcase the importance of microbiome research in advancing the agrifood system. The selected case studies describe products, methodologies, applications, tools, and processes that created an economic and societal impact.

Phoenicin Switch: Discovering the Trigger for Radical Phoenicin Production in Multiple Wild-Type Species.

Society faces the challenge of storing energy from sustainable sources in inexpensive, nontoxic ways that do not deplete the limited resources of Earth. In this regard, quinone redox flow batteries have been proposed as ideal; however, industrially used quinones have traditionally been synthesized from fossil fuels. Therefore, we investigated the production of phoenicin (compound 1), a deep violet dibenzoquinone produced by certain species, for its industrial potential.

Current status of secondary metabolite pathways linked to their related biosynthetic gene clusters in section .

Covering: up to the end of 2021Aspergilli are biosynthetically 'talented' micro-organisms and therefore the natural products community has continually been interested in the wealth of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) encoding numerous secondary metabolites related to these fungi. With the rapid increase in sequenced fungal genomes combined with the continuous development of bioinformatics tools such as antiSMASH, linking new structures to unknown BGCs has become much easier when taking retro-biosynthetic considerations into account. On the other hand, in most cases it is not as straightforward to prove proposed biosynthetic pathways due to the lack of implemented genetic tools in a given fungal species.

A Molecular Networking Based Discovery of Diketopiperazine Heterodimers and Aspergillicins from .

The number of species in section has recently increased to 36 and includes some of the most important and well-known species in the genus . Numerous secondary metabolites, especially mycotoxins, have been reported from species such as ; however many of the more recently described species are less studied from a chemical point of view. This paper describes the use of MS/MS-based molecular networking to investigate the metabolome of leading to the discovery of several new diketopiperazine dimers and aspergillicins.

Discovery and Extrolite Production of Three New Species of Belonging to Sections and from Freshwater in Korea.

Three novel fungal species,  , , and were found in Korea during an investigation of fungi in freshwater. The new species are described here using morphological characters, a multi-gene phylogenetic analysis of the ITS, , , regions, and extrolite data.   is characterized by restricted growth on CYA, YES, monoverticillate and biverticillate conidiophores, and globose smooth-walled conidia.

Growth Enhancement of Arabidopsis () and Onion () With Inoculation of Three Newly Identified Mineral-Solubilizing Fungi in the Genus Section .

Some soil fungi play an important role in supplying elements to plants by the solubilizing of insoluble minerals in the soil. The present study was conducted to isolate the mineral-solubilizing fungi from rhizosphere soil in some agricultural areas in northern Thailand. Seven fungal strains were obtained and identified using a polyphasic taxonomic approach with multilocus phylogenetic and phenotypic (morphology and extrolite profile) analyses.

Mass Spectrometry-Based Network Analysis Reveals New Insights Into the Chemodiversity of 28 Species in section .

section includes some of the most famous mycotoxin producing filamentous fungi known to mankind. In recent years a number of new species have been included in section , however these species have been much less studied from a chemical point of view. In this study, we explored one representative strain of a total of 28 fungal species in section by systematically evaluating the relationship between taxonomy and secondary metabolites with LC-MS/MS analysis for the first time and dereplication through an in-house database and the Global Natural Product Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) platform.

Taxonomy Driven Discovery of Polyketides from .

Five new polyketides were isolated from the rare filamentous fungus IBT 16748 including calidiol A (); three phthalide derivatives califuranones A, A, and B (-); and a pair of enantiomers (-)-calitetralintriol A (-) and (+)-calitetralintriol A (+) together with four known metabolites (-). The structures of the new products were established by extensive spectroscopic analyses including HRMS and 1D and 2D NMR. The absolute configurations of two diastereomers and and the enantiomers (-) and (+) were assigned by comparing their experimental and calculated ECD data, whereas the absolute configuration of was proposed by analogy.

Mass Spectrometry Guided Discovery and Design of Novel Asperphenamate Analogs From Reveals an Extraordinary NRPS Flexibility.

Asperphenamate is a small peptide natural product that has gained much interest due to its antitumor activity. In the recent years numerous bioactive synthetic asperphenamate analogs have been reported, whereas only a handful of natural analogs either of microbial or plant origin has been discovered. Herein we describe a UHPLC-HRMS/MS and amino acid supplement approach for discovery and design of novel asperphenamate analogs.

A Pilot Study on Baseline Fungi and Moisture Indicator Fungi in Danish Homes.

In many complaint cases regarding bad indoor environments, there is no evidence of visible fungal growth. To determine if the problems are fungi-related, dust sampling is the method of choice among building surveyors. However, there is a need to differentiate between species belonging to a normal, dry indoor environment and species belonging to a damp building envelope.

Diversity within Clade and Description of a New Species: sp. nov.

Diversity of species within clade, currently represented by and , was investigated combining three-locus gene sequences, , secondary metabolites profile and morphology. Firstly, approximately 700 accessions belonging to this clade were investigated using calmodulin gene sequences. Based on these sequences, eight haplotypes were clearly identified as ( = 247) and 17 as ( = 403).

New species in section and an overview of section .

sections and are accommodated in the subgenus . In the present study, a polyphasic approach using morphology and multi-gene phylogeny was applied to investigate the taxonomy of these two sections. Based on the phylogenetic analysis, section includes 25 species, which can be assigned to four series: , , and is newly described in this section and this species was isolated from a cigarette from PR China and belongs to series .

New azaphilones from Aspergillus neoglaber.

Three new azaphilones, sassafrin E (1), sassafrin F (2), and sassafrinamine A (3), were isolated from the filamentous fungus Aspergillus neoglaber. The structures of the compounds were determined by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and were found to be novel analogues of two already known compound classes; sassafrins and berkchaetoazaphilones. Sassafrin E and F were both oxygen containing, while sassafrinamine A additionally contained a nitrogen atom, originating from an aminoethanol moiety, as well as extensive conjugation resulting in an intense purple colour of the pure compound.

New section and species in .

is a monophyletic genus containing seven sections. The number of species in grows rapidly due to reliable and complete sequence data contributed from all over the world. In this study agricultural soil samples from Fujiang, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Shandong, Tibet and Zhejiang provinces of China were collected and analyzed for fungal diversity.

Review of Oxepine-Pyrimidinone-Ketopiperazine Type Nonribosomal Peptides.

Recently, a rare class of nonribosomal peptides (NRPs) bearing a unique Oxepine-Pyrimidinone-Ketopiperazine (OPK) scaffold has been exclusively isolated from fungal sources. Based on the number of rings and conjugation systems on the backbone, it can be further categorized into three types A, B, and C. These compounds have been applied to various bioassays, and some have exhibited promising bioactivities like antifungal activity against phytopathogenic fungi and transcriptional activation on liver X receptor α.

Growing a circular economy with fungal biotechnology: a white paper.

Fungi have the ability to transform organic materials into a rich and diverse set of useful products and provide distinct opportunities for tackling the urgent challenges before all humans. Fungal biotechnology can advance the transition from our petroleum-based economy into a bio-based circular economy and has the ability to sustainably produce resilient sources of food, feed, chemicals, fuels, textiles, and materials for construction, automotive and transportation industries, for furniture and beyond. Fungal biotechnology offers solutions for securing, stabilizing and enhancing the food supply for a growing human population, while simultaneously lowering greenhouse gas emissions.