A protein with a molecular mass of around 7000 Da was detected
in the somatic extracts from the wild-type strain with both ProteinChips® used (p < 0.021) but not in the extracts obtained from the four abnormally pigmented A. fumigatus strains (Figure 4 A). selleck inhibitor On the contrary, a protein with a molecular mass of around 8530 Da was found to be secreted by all four mutants in metabolic fractions from static cultures where pigment and conidia were developed (p < 0.039) but was not detected in metabolic fractions obtained from the wild-type strain as shown in Figure 4B. Its relation to pigmentation or induction or repression of other genes remains to be established. Figure 4 Examples of SELDI-TOF spectra of differentially expressed proteins on CM10 ProteinChips ® . A: The protein profile showed a protein of 7034 Da mostly expressed by the wild-type strain in the somatic fraction obtained from shaken culture, B: A peak around 8530 Da was detected only in the metabolic fractions obtained from static cultures of the four abnormally pigmented A. fumigatus strains (IHEM 2508, 15998, 9860 and 13262). WT: wild-type, WM: White mutant, BM: Brown mutant. The SELDI-TOF
Aloxistatin supplier comparison of these four natural mutants with the wild-type reference strain is powerful. This analysis indicated protein masses of interest which could open further investigations in the comparative study between mutants Astemizole and wild-type strains. As observed, this method is highly suitable to separate low molecular weight compounds and could provide complementary data to other analytical techniques [43]. Thus, as described for bacteria [25], this method may be also suitable to discriminate isolates within the same species. Comparison of A. fumigatus and A. lentulus extracts
In addition to the separation of strains within the same species, we applied hierarchical clustering to differentiate A. fumigatus from A. lentulus, a closely related species from the Fumigati section, using CM10 and NP20 ProteinChips® chosen for to their good reproducibility. Metabolic extracts (from seven different sets of experiments: six grown simultaneously and one independently) from A. fumigatus and A. lentulus strains were classified into distinct clusters on CM10 (Figure 5) as well as on NP20 ProteinChips® (not shown). Ten out of 101 proteins showed over expression only in the A. fumigatus extracts (Figure 5). Somatic extracts from the two Aspergillus species were also separated into two distinct clusters according to the species. However, the somatic extracts from the two A. lentulus strains were not completely separated (not shown). The best resolution was obtained with the metabolic samples on CM10 ProteinChip®, perfect distinction was obtained between the two species and between the two isolates within the same species (Figure 5). Figure 5 The hierarchical clustering of A. fumigatus and A. lentulus metabolic extracts.