The veA gene of the pine needle pathogen Dothistroma septosporum regulates sporulation and secondary metabolism

VeA Regulates Conidiation, Gliotoxin Production, and Protease Activity in the Opportunistic Human Pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus

“…Aspergillus fumigatus produces gliotoxin, a secondary metabolite that in some cases has been shown to be associated with pathogenicity and that has been detected in the lungs of mice during infection (12). Previously it has been demonstrated that veA orthologs regulate secondary metabolism in other fungal species (17,19,26,38,56). For this reason, we investigated whether veA also controls the biosynthesis of gliotoxin in A. fumigatus.…”

“…Numerous studies have shown that VeA is also a master regulator of secondary metabolism in many fungal species (5,16,19,25,26,38,54,56,96,99). In A. fumigatus, however, the involvement of VeA in secondary metabolism had not been investigated until now.…”

“…VeA is found in numerous fungal species, particularly in Ascomycetes (57). Orthologs of VeA in other fungi have also been demonstrated to regulate secondary metabolism: for example, aflatoxin in Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus (16,26), fumonisin and fusarins in Fusarium verticillioides (56) and F. fujikori, where it was also found to regulate gibberellins and bikaverin (96), trichothecenes in Fusarium graminearum (54), dothistromin in Dothistroma septosporum (19), penicillin in A. nidulans (38), cephalosporin C in Acremonium chrysogenum (25), polyketide ML-236B (substrate in pravastatin production) in Penicillium citrinum (5), and T-toxin in Cochliobolus heterostrophus (99), among others.…”

FgVELB is associated with vegetative differentiation, secondary metabolism and virulence in Fusarium graminearum

“…In the light, VeA is mostly retained in the cytoplasm; and in the dark, the VeA/VelB proteins are imported into the nucleus by the a importin, KapA, and interact with LaeA to form the velvet complex, which affects expressions of secondary metabolite genes in A. nidulans (Bayram et al, 2008). The protein VeA was first identified in A. nidulans (Kafer, 1965), after then it has been identified in various fungi (Kurtz and Champe, 1981;Yager, 1992;Kato et al, 2003;Calvo et al, 2004;Duran et al, 2007;Chettri et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2012). Several previous studies demonstrated that VeA affects various cellular processes including regulation of asexual and sexual development as well as secondary metabolism (Calvo, 2008).…”

Key Players in the Regulation of Fungal Secondary Metabolism

“…Consequently, the three velvet complex proteins are only colocalized to the nucleus under dark conditions, allowing formation of the fully functional heterotrimeric velvet complex. The mechanism of velvet complex regulation of SMs is best studied in A. nidulans but increasingly well known in other fungi [90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97]. Once assembled in the nucleus of A. nidulans, the velvet complex drives sexual development and production of SMs, whereas these processes are repressed under illuminating conditions resulting from a dissociated velvet complex [81].…”