Six hydrophobins are involved in hydrophobin rodlet formation in Aspergillus nidulans and contribute to hydrophobicity of the spore surface.

Autor: André Grünbacher, Tanja Throm, Constanze Seidel, Beatrice Gutt, Julian Röhrig, Timo Strunk, Paul Vincze, Stefan Walheim, Thomas Schimmel, Wolfgang Wenzel, Reinhard Fischer
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2014
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 9, Iss 4, p e94546 (2014)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094546
Popis: Hydrophobins are amphiphilic proteins able to self-assemble at water-air interphases and are only found in filamentous fungi. In Aspergillus nidulans two hydrophobins, RodA and DewA, have been characterized, which both localize on the conidiospore surface and contribute to its hydrophobicity. RodA is the constituent protein of very regularly arranged rodlets, 10 nm in diameter. Here we analyzed four more hydrophobins, DewB-E, in A. nidulans and found that all six hydrophobins contribute to the hydrophobic surface of the conidiospores but only deletion of rodA caused loss of the rodlet structure. Analysis of the rodlets in the dewB-E deletion strains with atomic force microscopy revealed that the rodlets appeared less robust. Expression of DewA and DewB driven from the rodA promoter and secreted with the RodA secretion signal in a strain lacking RodA, restored partly the hydrophobicity. DewA and B were able to form rodlets to some extent but never reached the rodlet structure of RodA. The rodlet-lacking rodA-deletion strain opens the possibility to systematically study rodlet formation of other natural or synthetic hydrophobins.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals