Ophiostoma piceae CECT 20416 is a dimorphic wood-staining fungus able to produce an extracellular sterol-esterase/lipase (OPE) that is of great biotechnological interest. In this work, we have studied the morphological change of this fungus from yeast to hyphae, which is associated with the cell density-related mechanism known as quorum sensing (QS), and how this affects the secretion of OPE. The data presented here confirm that the molecule E,E-farnesol accumulates as the cell number is growing within the population. The exogenous addition of this molecule or spent medium to the cultures increased the extracellular activity of OPE 2.5 times. This fact was related not to an increase in microbial biomass or in the expression of the gene coding for OPE but to a marked morphological transition in the cultures. Moreover, the morphological transition also occurred when a high cell density was inoculated into the medium. The results suggest that E,E-farnesol regulates through QS mechanisms the morphological transition in the dimorphic fungus O. piceae and that it is associated with a higher extracellular esterase activity. Furthermore, identification and transcriptional analysis of genes tup1 and cyr1, which are involved in the response, was carried out. Here we report enhanced production of a sterol-esterase/lipase of biotechnological interest by means of QS mechanisms. These results may be useful in increasing the production of secreted enzymes of other dimorphic fungi of biotechnological interest.
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