On August 08, 2019, Prof. Chen Wei’s team of our collegecooperated with Prof. Petr Karlovsky’s team of University of Gottingen, Germany,and published a paper entitled “Bis-naphthopyrone pigments protect filamentousascomycetes from a wide range of predators” in the journal of NatureCommunications. This study suggests that fungal bis-naphthopyronepigments which are widespread among ascomycetes protect fungi from predators byexerting antifeedant effects on a wide range of phylogenetically distantarthropods.

It isthought that fungi protect themselves from predation by the production ofcompounds that are toxic to soil-dwelling animals. Here, we show that anontoxic pigment, the bis-naphthopyrone aurofusarin, protects Fusarium fungifrom a wide range of animal predators. We find that springtails (primitivehexapods), woodlice (crustaceans), and mealworms (insects) prefer feeding onfungi with disrupted aurofusarin synthesis, and mealworms and springtails arerepelled by wheat flour amended with the fungal bis-naphthopyrones aurofusarin,viomellein, or xanthomegnin. Predation stimulates aurofusarin synthesis inseveral Fusarium species and viomellein synthesis in Aspergillusochraceus. Aurofusarin displays low toxicity in mealworms, springtails,isopods, Drosophila, and insect cells, contradicting the commonview that fungal defence metabolites are toxic. Their research indicated thatbis-naphthopyrones are defence compounds that protect filamentous ascomycetesfrom predators through a mechanism that does not involve toxicity.

Corresponding authors of this paper were Professor Chen Wei fromZhejiang University and Professor Petr Karlovsky from the University ofGottingen in Germany. Part of the research was supported by Professors MarkoRohlfs of the University of Bremen and Wilhelm Schafer of the University ofHamburg in Germany. This research was funded by the National Natural ScienceFoundation of China and the German Research Foundation.

Link to the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11377-5