Time-course gene expression data from deletion strains of Penicillium chrysogenum

In filamentous fungi, secondary metabolism is often linked with developmental processes such as conidiation. In this study we analyzed the link between secondary metabolism and conidiation in the main industrial producer of the β-lactam antibiotic penicillin, the ascomycete Penicillium chrysogenum. Therefore, we generated mutants defective in two central regulators of conidiation, the transcription factors BrlA and StuA, respectively. Inactivation of both BrlA and StuA blocked conidiation and altered hyphal morphology during growth on solid media, as shown by light and scanning electron microscopy, but did not affect biomass production during liquid submerged growth. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling identified a complex StuA- and BrlA-dependent regulatory network, including genes previously shown to be involved in development and secondary metabolism. Remarkably, inactivation of StuA, but not BrlA, drastically down-regulated expression of the penicillin biosynthetic gene cluster during solid and liquid submerged growth. In agreement, penicillin V production was wild type-like in BrlA-deficient strains but 99 % decreased in StuA-deficient strains during liquid submerged growth as shown by HPLC analysis. Thus, among identified regulators of penicillin V production StuA has the most severe influence. Over-expression of StuA increased the transcript levels of BrlA and AbaA (another developmental regulator), de-repressed conidiation during liquid submerged growth, but did not affect penicillin V productivity. Taken together, these data demonstrate an intimate but not exclusive link between regulation of development and secondary metabolism in P. chrysogenum. Transcriptomes of PcbrlA- and PcstuA- deletion mutants were compared with expression data from recipient strain deltaPcku70 as a control Mycelia from the transformants and the reference strain were harvested at successive stages of development for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.