Degradation Potential of Xerophilic and Xerotolerant Fungi Contaminating Historic Canvas Paintings.

Fungi are important contaminants of historic canvas paintings worldwide. They can grow on both sides of the canvas and decompose various components of the paintings. They excrete pigments and acids that change the visual appearance of the paintings and weaken their structure, leading to flaking and cracking.

Xerophilic fungi contaminating historically valuable easel paintings from Slovenia.

Historically valuable canvas paintings are often exposed to conditions enabling microbial deterioration. Painting materials, mainly of organic origin, in combination with high humidity and other environmental conditions, favor microbial metabolism and growth. These preconditions are often present during exhibitions or storage in old buildings, such as churches and castles, and also in museum storage depositories.

Degradation of polypropylene by fungi Coniochaeta hoffmannii and Pleurostoma richardsiae.

The urgent need for better disposal and recycling of plastics has motivated a search for microbes with the ability to degrade synthetic polymers. While microbes capable of metabolizing polyurethane and polyethylene terephthalate have been discovered and even leveraged in enzymatic recycling approaches, microbial degradation of additive-free polypropylene (PP) remains elusive. Here we report the isolation and characterization of two fungal strains with the potential to degrade pure PP.

Fungal colonisation on wood surfaces weathered at diverse climatic conditions.

Natural weathering test at two different European climatic zones were conducted to investigate simultaneously both, the fungal colonisation and weathering process of Scots pine wood ( L.). The hypothesis was that the wood performing differently in various climate conditions might affect fungal infestation.

Cultivable Skin Mycobiota of Healthy and Diseased Blind Cave Salamander ().

is a neotenic cave salamander, endemic to the Dinaric Karst and a symbol of world natural heritage. It is classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is one of the EU priority species in need of strict protection. Due to inaccessibility of their natural underground habitat, scientific studies of the olm have been conducted mainly in captivity, where the amphibians are particularly susceptible to opportunistic microbial infections.

Interactions of Fungi and Algae from the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Heavily pigmented glacier ice algae Ancylonema nordenskiöldii and Ancylonema alaskanum (Zygnematophyceae, Streptophyta) reduce the bare ice albedo of the Greenland Ice Sheet, amplifying melt from the largest cryospheric contributor to eustatic sea-level rise. Little information is available about glacier ice algae interactions with other microbial communities within the surface ice environment, including fungi, which may be important for sustaining algal bloom development. To address this substantial knowledge gap and investigate the nature of algal-fungal interactions, an ex situ co-cultivation experiment with two species of fungi, recently isolated from the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet (here proposed new species Penicillium anthracinoglaciei Perini, Frisvad and Zalar, Mycobank (MB 835602), and Articulospora sp.

Evolution and Physiology of Amphibious Yeasts.

Since the emergence of the first fungi some 700 million years ago, unicellular yeast-like forms have emerged multiple times in independent lineages via convergent evolution. While tens to hundreds of millions of years separate the independent evolution of these unicellular organisms, they share remarkable phenotypic and metabolic similarities, and all have streamlined genomes. Yeasts occur in every aquatic environment yet examined.

Novel Antarctic yeast adapts to cold by switching energy metabolism and increasing small RNA synthesis.

The novel extremophilic yeast Rhodotorula frigidialcoholis, formerly R. JG1b, was isolated from ice-cemented permafrost in University Valley (Antarctic), one of coldest and driest environments on Earth. Phenotypic and phylogenetic analyses classified R.

The beauty and the yeast: can the microalgae form a borderline lichen with ?

Lichenized fungi usually develop complex, stratified morphologies through an intricately balanced living together with their algal partners, but several species are known to form only more or less loose associations with algae. These borderline lichens are still little explored although they could inform us about early stages of lichen evolution. We studied the association of the extremely halotolerant fungus with the alga , discovered in a cave in the Atacama Desert (Chile), and with .

Greenland and Svalbard glaciers host unknown basidiomycetes: the yeast sp. nov. and the dimorphic gen. and sp. nov.

Sampling campaigns in Greenland and Svalbard were executed to explore fungal diversity in cold habitats. Three very abundant groups of strains were discovered, consisting either of recently described or of yet-undescribed psychrophilic and oligotrophic yeasts and dimorphic fungi, accounting for around 50 % of the total cultivable diversity of basidiomycetes in our studies. The occurrence of these taxa has also been demonstrated by culture-independent methods.

Shed Light in the DaRk LineagES of the Fungal Tree of Life-STRES.

The polyphyletic group of black fungi within the Ascomycota (Arthoniomycetes, Dothideomycetes, and Eurotiomycetes) is ubiquitous in natural and anthropogenic habitats. Partly because of their dark, melanin-based pigmentation, black fungi are resistant to stresses including UV- and ionizing-radiation, heat and desiccation, toxic metals, and organic pollutants. Consequently, they are amongst the most stunning extremophiles and poly-extreme-tolerant organisms on Earth.

Stress Reshapes the Physiological Response of Halophile Fungi to Salinity.

(1) Background: Mechanisms of cellular and molecular adaptation of fungi to salinity have been commonly drawn from halotolerant strains and few studies in basidiomycete fungi. These studies have been conducted in settings where cells are subjected to stress, either hypo- or hyperosmotic, which can be a confounding factor in describing physiological mechanisms related to salinity. (2) Methods: We have studied transcriptomic changes in , a halophilic species, when growing in three different salinity conditions (No NaCl, 0.

Dual-gate organic phototransistor with high-gain and linear photoresponse.

The conversion of light into electrical signal in a photodetector is a crucial process for a wide range of technological applications. Here we report a new device concept of dual-gate phototransistor that combines the operation of photodiodes and phototransistors to simultaneously enable high-gain and linear photoresponse without requiring external circuitry. In an oppositely biased, dual-gate transistor based on a solution-processed organic heterojunction layer, we find that the presence of both n- and p-type channels enables both photogenerated electrons and holes to efficiently separate and transport in the same semiconducting layer.

Global Molecular Diversity of the Halotolerant Fungus .

A global set of clinical and environmental strains of the halotolerant black yeast-like fungus are analyzed by multilocus sequencing and AFLP, and physiological parameters are determined. Partial translation elongation factor 1-α proves to be suitable for typing because of the presence/absence of introns and also the presence of several SNPs. Local clonal expansion could be established by a combination of molecular methods, while the population from the Mediterranean Sea water also responds differently to combined temperature and salt stress.

Ultraflexible Near-Infrared Organic Photodetectors for Conformal Photoplethysmogram Sensors.

Flexible organic optoelectronic devices simultaneously targeting mechanical conformability and fast responsivity in the near-infrared (IR) region are a prerequisite to expand the capabilities of practical optical science and engineering for on-skin optoelectronic applications. Here, an ultraflexible near-IR responsive skin-conformal photoplethysmogram sensor based on a bulk heterojunction photovoltaic active layer containing regioregular polyindacenodithiophene-pyridyl[2,1,3]thiadiazole-cyclopentadithiophene (PIPCP) is reported. The ultrathin (3 µm thick) photodetector exhibits unprecedented operational stability under severe mechanical deformation at a bending radius of less than 3 µm, even after more than 10 bending cycles.

Opportunistic fungal pathogens isolated from a captive individual of the European blind cave salamander Proteus anguinus.

Proteus anguinus is a neotenic cave amphibian endemic to the Dinaric Karst and represents a symbol of Slovenian natural heritage. It is classified as 'Vulnerable' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is one of the EU priority species in need of strict protection. Due to inaccessibility of its natural underground habitat, scientific studies have been primarily conducted on Proteus in captivity where amphibians may be particularly susceptible to opportunistic microbial infections.

Occultifur mephitis f.a., sp. nov. and other yeast species from hypoxic and elevated CO2 mofette environments.

An inventory of culturable yeasts from the soil and water of natural CO2 springs (mofettes) in northeast Slovenia is presented. In mofettes, CO2 of geological origin reaches the soil surface causing temporarily and spatially stable hypoxic environments in soil and water. In total, 142 yeast strains were isolated and identified from high CO2 and control meadow soil, meadow ground-water, forest pond and stream water.

Genomic evidence for intraspecific hybridization in a clonal and extremely halotolerant yeast.

Background: The black yeast Hortaea werneckii (Dothideomycetes, Ascomycota) is one of the most extremely halotolerant fungi, capable of growth at NaCl concentrations close to saturation. Although dothideomycetous fungi are typically haploid, the reference H. werneckii strain has a diploid genome consisting of two subgenomes with a high level of heterozygosity.

sp. nov. and sp. nov. from European Cold Environments and Arctic Region.

Over 80% of the Earth’s environments are permanently or periodically exposed to temperatures below 5 °C. Cold habitats harbour a wide diversity of psychrophilic and psychrotolerant yeasts. During ecological studies of yeast communities carried out in cold ecosystem in the Italian Alps, Svalbard (Norway, Arctic region), and Portugal, 23 yeast strains that could not be assigned to any known fungal taxa were isolated.

Phylogeny of xerophilic aspergilli (subgenus ) and taxonomic revision of section .

section together with sister section (formerly ) comprises xerophilic species, that are able to grow on substrates with low water activity and in extreme environments. We adressed the monophyly of both sections within subgenus and applied a multidisciplinary approach for definition of species boundaries in sect. .

Ultraflexible Transparent Oxide/Metal/Oxide Stack Electrode with Low Sheet Resistance for Electrophysiological Measurements.

Flexible, transparent electrodes are a crucial component for future implantable and wearable systems. For practical applications, conductivity and flexibility should be further improved to prevent signal attenuation, heat generation, and disconnection. Herein, we fabricate an ultraflexible transparent electrode with low sheet resistance (8.

High Sensitivity Tuning of Work Function of Self-Assembled Monolayers Modified Electrodes Using Vacuum Ultraviolet Treatment.

We demonstrate systematic work function tuning of thiol-based SAM-modified gold electrodes with high controllability and sensitivity as high as 0.05 eV using vacuum ultraviolet technique (VUV). Under different irradiation times, both work function and wettability of the metal surface is modified.

Printable elastic conductors by in situ formation of silver nanoparticles from silver flakes.

Printable elastic conductors promise large-area stretchable sensor/actuator networks for healthcare, wearables and robotics. Elastomers with metal nanoparticles are one of the best approaches to achieve high performance, but large-area utilization is limited by difficulties in their processability. Here we report a printable elastic conductor containing Ag nanoparticles that are formed in situ, solely by mixing micrometre-sized Ag flakes, fluorine rubbers, and surfactant.

Aspergillus atacamensis and A. salisburgensis: two new halophilic species from hypersaline/arid habitats with a phialosimplex-like morphology.

Halophilic fungal strains isolated from historical wooden staircase in a salt mine in Austria, and from wall biofilm and soil of a cave in the Coastal Range of the hyperarid Atacama Desert in Chile were characterised and described newly as Aspergillus salisburgensis and Aspergillus atacamensis. Morphological characters including solitary phialides producing solitary conidia and conidia in chains and/or heads suggested affinity to Aspergillus subgenus Polypaecilum. Strains required salt for growth, grew optimally on media with 10-25% NaCl and at 15-28 °C.