Open AccessIsolation and characterisation of a partial peptide synthetase gene from Trichoderma asperellum
Author(s) -
Chutrakul Chanikul,
Peberdy John F.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
fems microbiology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.899
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1574-6968
pISSN - 0378-1097
DOI - 10.1016/j.femsle.2005.09.009
Subject(s) - adenylylation , biology , peptide , trichoderma , biochemistry , amino acid , enzyme , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , ribosomal rna , biosynthesis , botany
Many species of Trichoderma have attracted interest as agents for the biological control of soil borne fungal pathogens of a range of crop plants. Research on the biochemical mechanisms associated with this application has focused on the ability of these fungi to produce enzymes which lyse fungal cell walls, and antifungal antibiotics. An important group of the latter are the non‐ribosomal peptides called peptaibols. In this study Trichoderma asperellum , a strain used in biological control in Malaysia, was found to produce the peptaibol, trichotoxin. This type of peptide molecule is synthesised by a peptide synthetase (PES) enzyme template encoded by a peptide synthetase ( pes ) gene. Using nucleotide sequences amplified from adenylation (A‐) domains as probes, to hybridise against a λ FIX®II genomic library from T. asperellum , 25 clones were recovered. These were subsequently identified as representative of four groups based on their encoding properties for specific amino acid incorporation modules in a PES. This was based on analysis of their amino acid sequences which showed up to 86% identity to other PESs including TEX 1.