New penicillin-producing <I>Penicillium</I> species and an overview of section <I>Chrysogena</I>

Abstract

Species classified in Penicillium sect. Chrysogena are primary soil-borne and the most well-known members are P. chrysogenum and P. nalgiovense. Penicillium chrysogenum has received much attention because of its role in the production on penicillin and as a contaminant of indoor environments and various food and feedstuffs. Another biotechnologically important species is P. nalgiovense, which is used as a fungal starter culture for the production of fermented meat products. Previous taxonomic studies often had conflicting species circumscriptions. Here, we present a multigene analysis, combined with phenotypic characters and extrolite data, demonstrating that sect. Chrysogena consists of 18 species. Six of these are newly described here (P. allii-sativi, P. desertorum, P. goetzii, P. halotolerans, P. tardochrysogenum, P. vanluykii) and P. lanoscoeruleum was found to be an older name for P. aethiopicum. Each species produces a unique extrolite profile. The species share phenotypic characters, such as good growth on CYA supplemented with 5 % NaCl, ter- or quarterverticillate branched conidiophores and short, ampulliform phialides (< 9 μm). Conidial colours, production of ascomata and ascospores, shape and ornamentation of conidia and growth rates on other agar media are valuable for species identification. Eight species (P. allii-sativi, P. chrysogenum, P. dipodomyis, P. flavigenum, P. nalgiovense, P. rubens, P. tardochrysogenum and P. vanluykii) produce penicillin in culture.

Penicillium salamii, a new species occurring during seasoning of dry-cured meat

“…The topology is consistent between these two phylograms, recognizing P. salamii as a separate species using the GCPSR (Genealogical concordance phylogenetic species recognition) concept (Dettman et al, 2003). The extrolite analysis revealed that P. salamii produces asperphenamate typical of most members of section Brevicompacta (Frisvad et al, 2013), and chrysogine (and precursors) found in members of section Chrysogena (Houbraken et al, 2012). It is interesting to note that multiple recent horizontal transfers of a large genomic region occurred in cheese making fungi (Cheeseman et al, 2014).…”

“…P. astrolabium produces asperphenamate and xanthoepocin, but not chrysogine. Chrysogine is produced by members of section Chrysogena (Houbraken et al, 2012), while asperphenamate is produced by most members of section Brevicompacta (Frisvad et al, 2013) (Table 3).…”

Fungi in Ontario maple syrup & some factors that determine the presence of mold damage

“…β-Tubulin sequences of Penicillium subgenus Penicillium section Chrysogena were aligned using neighbor-joining tree with reference sequences from Houbraken et al (2012). P. chrysogenum, Penicillium flavigenum and Penicillium rubens were differentiated.…”

Two novel Aspergillus species from hypersaline soils of The National Park of Lake Urmia, Iran

“…Genomic DNA was extracted using the Ultraclean™ Microbial DNA isolation kit (MoBio, Solana Beach, USA). After DNA extraction, parts of the BenA, CaM, internal transcribed spacers (ITS) and RPB2 regions were amplified, sequenced and annotated (Houbraken et al 2012;Houbraken and Samson 2011). The newly generated sequences were supplemented with sequence data from GenBank.…”

“…Three agar plugs were extracted per agar medium as described before (Houbraken et al 2012;Nielsen et al 2011). The extracts were analysed using UHPLC-DAD and compounds were identified against an internal database of UV spectra and literature.…”