Colour pigments of Trichoderma harzianum. Preliminary investigations with thin-layer chromatography-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array and mass spectrometric detection

Exploration of industrially important pigments from soil fungi

The worldwide interest of the current era is to increase tendency towards the use of natural substances instead of synthetic ones. So, alternative and effective environment friendly sustainable technologies are highly needed. Due to a broad range of biological activities, fungi are considered as a significant source of pigments. Among the fungal species in the soil, the genera of Aspergillus, Fusarium, Penicillium, Paecilomyces, and Trichoderma are dominant. The pigments commonly produced by fungi belong to aromatic polyketide groups such as melanins, quinones, flavins, ankaflavin, anthraquinone, and naphthoquinone. The use of fungal pigments has benefits which comprise easy and fast growth in the cheap culture medium and different color shades being independent of weather conditions and would be useful in various industrial applications. In relation to the toxic effects of the synthetic dyes, the natural dyes are easily degradable since they cause no detrimental effects. Thus, the study of pigments produced by soil fungi has tremendous use in medical, textile coloring, food coloring, and cosmetics.

FTIR study and bioadsorption kinetics of bioadsorbent for the analysis of metal pollutants

Elevated concentrations of heavy metals in groundwater cause many environmental problems. This paper reports adsorption behavior of a green bioadsorbent (Trichoderma sp.) for the removal of heavy metal ions from industrial effluents.

The polyketide synthase gene pks4 of Trichoderma reesei provides pigmentation and stress resistance

Species of the fungal genus Trichoderma (Hypocreales, Ascomycota) are well-known for their production of various secondary metabolites. Nonribosomal peptides and polyketides represent a major portion of these products. In a recent phylogenomic investigation of Trichoderma polyketide synthase (PKS)-encoding genes, the pks4 from T. reesei was shown to be an orthologue of pigment-forming PKSs involved in synthesis of aurofusarin and bikaverin in Fusarium spp. In this study, we show that deletion of this gene in T. reesei results in loss of green conidial pigmentation and in pigmentation alteration of teleomorph structures. It also has an impact on conidial cell wall stability and the antagonistic abilities of T. reesei against other fungi, including formation of inhibitory metabolites. In addition, deletion of pks4 significantly influences the expression of other PKS-encoding genes of T. reesei. To our knowledge, this is the first indication that a low-molecular-weight pigment-forming PKS is involved in defense, mechanical stability, and stress resistance in fungi.