Deregulation of secondary metabolism in a histone deacetylase mutant of Penicillium chrysogenum.

The Pc21 g14570 gene of Penicillium chrysogenum encodes an ortholog of a class 2 histone deacetylase termed HdaA which may play a role in epigenetic regulation of secondary metabolism. Deletion of the hdaA gene induces a significant pleiotropic effect on the expression of a set of polyketide synthase (PKS) and nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS)-encoding genes. The deletion mutant exhibits a decreased conidial pigmentation that is related to a reduced expression of the PKS gene Pc21 g16000 (pks17) responsible for the production of the pigment precursor naphtha-γ-pyrone.

Identification of a Polyketide Synthase Involved in Sorbicillin Biosynthesis by Penicillium chrysogenum.

Unlabelled: Secondary metabolism in Penicillium chrysogenum was intensively subjected to classical strain improvement (CSI), the resulting industrial strains producing high levels of β-lactams. During this process, the production of yellow pigments, including sorbicillinoids, was eliminated as part of a strategy to enable the rapid purification of β-lactams. Here we report the identification of the polyketide synthase (PKS) gene essential for sorbicillinoid biosynthesis in P.

Genomic mutational analysis of the impact of the classical strain improvement program on β-lactam producing Penicillium chrysogenum.

Background: Penicillium chrysogenum is a filamentous fungus that is employed as an industrial producer of β-lactams. The high β-lactam titers of current strains is the result of a classical strain improvement program (CSI) starting with a wild-type like strain more than six decades ago. This involved extensive mutagenesis and strain selection for improved β-lactam titers and growth characteristics.

A non-canonical NRPS is involved in the synthesis of fungisporin and related hydrophobic cyclic tetrapeptides in Penicillium chrysogenum.

The filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum harbors an astonishing variety of nonribosomal peptide synthetase genes, which encode proteins known to produce complex bioactive metabolites from simple building blocks. Here we report a novel non-canonical tetra-modular nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) with microheterogenicity of all involved adenylation domains towards their respective substrates. By deleting the putative gene in combination with comparative metabolite profiling various unique cyclic and derived linear tetrapeptides were identified which were associated with this NRPS, including fungisporin.

Novel key metabolites reveal further branching of the roquefortine/meleagrin biosynthetic pathway.

Metabolic profiling and structural elucidation of novel secondary metabolites obtained from derived deletion strains of the filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum were used to reassign various previously ascribed synthetase genes of the roquefortine/meleagrin pathway to their corresponding products. Next to the structural characterization of roquefortine F and neoxaline, which are for the first time reported for P. chrysogenum, we identified the novel metabolite roquefortine L, including its degradation products, harboring remarkable chemical structures.

A branched biosynthetic pathway is involved in production of roquefortine and related compounds in Penicillium chrysogenum.

Profiling and structural elucidation of secondary metabolites produced by the filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum and derived deletion strains were used to identify the various metabolites and enzymatic steps belonging to the roquefortine/meleagrin pathway. Major abundant metabolites of this pathway were identified as histidyltryptophanyldiketopiperazine (HTD), dehydrohistidyltryptophanyldi-ketopiperazine (DHTD), roquefortine D, roquefortine C, glandicoline A, glandicoline B and meleagrin. Specific genes could be assigned to each enzymatic reaction step.

Application of time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometry for the online measurement of gaseous molecular iodine.

Here we present a new application of a time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (TOF-AMS) for the measurement of atmospheric trace gases in real-time. Usually, TOF-AMS instruments are not sensitive to gas-phase species due to the aerodynamic particle focusing inlet system which reduces the gas phase species by a factor of about 10(7) relative to the particle phase. This efficient removal of the gas phase and the resulting high relative enrichment of particles is one reason for the very high sensitivity of TOF-AMS instruments for particle phase compounds (detection limits in the sub-μg/m(3)-range for online measurements with 1 min integration time), which allows application of the instruments even under clean atmospheric conditions.