Metabolomic analyses revealed that,

in addition to inhibited AF biosynthesis, mycelia grown in peptone media with high initial spore densities showed enhanced sugar utilization and repressed lipid biosynthetic metabolism. Results Spore density-dependent AF selleckchem production in PMS media PMS has long been considered to be a non-conducive medium for AF production in learn more both A. flavus and A. parasiticus[23–25]. To investigate the mechanism underlying peptone’s influence on AF biosynthesis, the well-studied A. flavus A3.2890 [37–39] from the China General Microbiological Culture Collection Center (CGMCC) was used to conduct our experiments. It was indeed the case that A. flavus did not produce AFs when cultured at the commonly employed initial spore density of 105 or 106 spores/ml. However, when various spore densities Bucladesine chemical structure of A. flavus were tested to initiate cultures, a density-dependent AF production was observed. When the initial spore density was gradually decreased, increasing amounts of AFs were detected in media after 3-day culture, as shown by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high pressure

liquid chromatography (HPLC) analyses (Figure 1B & D). At 101 spores/ml, the amount of AFs produced was significantly lower, comparable to that of the 104 spores/ml culture. The maximal AF production was observed in the PMS medium inoculated with 102 spores/ml. This differs from GMS cultures, where increasing amounts of AFs were produced when initial spore densities were increased from 101 to 106 spores/ml (Figure 1A & C). We also observed that in GMS media, AFB1 was the major toxin (Figure 1C), while in PMS media, AFG1 was the primary toxin produced (Figure 1D). These data suggest that AF biosynthesis is regulated differentially in these two media. Figure 1 Spore density-dependent AF productions in A. flavus in PMS media. (A, B), TLC analyses of AF productions by A. flavus A3.2890 cultured in

PJ34 HCl GMS (A) or PMS (B) media for 3 days with initial spore densities of 101, 102, 103, 104, 105 and 106 spores/ml. Ten μl AF extracts were loaded in (A), and 50 μl in (B). St: AF standards. (C, D) HPLC analyses of AFs produced by A. flavus A3.2890 cultured in GMS (C) or PMS (D) media for 3 days, with the initial spore densities of 101, 102, 103, 104, 105 and 106 spores/ml. Note in GMS media both AFB1 and AFG1 were produced, while in PMS media mainly AFG1 was produced. (E) The time course of AFG1 productions in PMS media during 5-day cultures, with initial spore densities of 106 (dotted line) or 104 (solid line) spores/ml. All results were the mean ± SD of 3 measurements from mixed three independent samples. Since most A. flavus strains produce only AFB1 [40–42], we examined if the A3.2890 strain used was indeed A. flavus. By using the protocol developed by Henry et al (2000) [43], fragments of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of rRNA β-Tubulin and Calmodulin genes from the A. flavus A3.