Colonies of the fungus Aspergillus niger are highly differentiated to adapt to local carbon source variation.

ABSTRACT: Saprobic fungi, such as Aspergillus niger, grow as colonies consisting of a network of branching and fusing hyphae that are often considered to be relatively uniform entities in which nutrients can freely move through the hyphae. In nature, different parts of a colony are often exposed to different nutrients. We have investigated, using a multi-omics approach, adaptation of A. niger colonies to spatially separated and compositionally different plant biomass substrates. This demonstrated a high level of intra-colony differentiation, which closely matched the locally available substrate. The part of the colony exposed to pectin-rich sugar beet pulp and to xylan-rich wheat bran showed high pectinolytic and high xylanolytic transcript and protein levels respectively. This study therefore exemp

SUBMITTER: Daly P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7065180 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature