Repellents have functionally replaced hydrophobins in mediating attachment to a hydrophobic surface and in formation of hydrophobic aerial hyphae in Ustilago maydis.

Ustilago maydis contains one repellent and two class I hydrophobin genes in its genome. The repellent gene rep1 has been described previously. It encodes 11 secreted repellent peptides that result from the cleavage of a precursor protein at KEX2 recognition sites.