Cerato-ulmin, a toxin involved in Dutch elm disease, is a fungal hydrophobin.

Hydrophobins are components of microbial cell walls that contribute tocell surface hydrophobicity. The hydrophobic nature of the surfaces of many microbes, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, is important to such processes as adhesion of pathogens to host structures and dispersa1 of aerial spores (Beever and Dempsey, 1978; Doyle and Rosenberg, 1990; Stringer et al., 1991). A class of peptide hydrophobins has recently been discovered and characterized in the filamentous fungi. Wessels (1992) demonstrated that three small hydrophobic peptides from the basidiomycete Schizophyllum commune assemble in the walls of aerial structures and that