Volatile organic compounds emitted in the headspace by fungal colonies play some communicating roles between co-cultured ones.

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25650148
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Ecology/Environment
• Research Institution: Nara Women's University
• Principal Investigator: SUZUKI Takahito 奈良女子大学, 古代学学術研究センター, 特任教授 (60144135)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): TAKEUCHI Takae 奈良女子大学, 自然科学系, 准教授 (80201606) ; KIUCHI Masato 独立行政法人産業技術総合研究所, ユビキタスエネルギー部門, 主任研究員 (50356862)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: MVOC / fungal growth / self-inhibitor / allelochemical / Aspergillus fumigatus / Fusarium solani / fungal communication / GC/MS

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Physiological roles of microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCs) emitted from fungi remain to be unclear. We clarified here the function of MVOCs in terms of their activities on the fungal growth. Application of the co-culturing system in a growth chamber allowed free gas or volatile exchange between a releaser and a receiver, or between the colonies of different growth stage of the same species.
Solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) revealed MVOCs of Aspergillus fumigatus and Fusarium solani. Quantitative analysis of MVOC by GC/MS revealed hexanal from F. solani and heptanal from A. fumigatus working as the self-inhibitor of each growth. Benzaldehyde, released from the colonies of F. solani, played as an allelochemical inhibitor against those of A. fumigatus.

Free Research Field

微生物生態学