Carsten Freidank-Pohl

Technische Universität Berlin | TUB · Institute of Biotechnology

We present a Penicillium rubens strain with an industrial background in which the four highly expressed biosynthetic gene clusters (BGC) required to produce penicillin, roquefortine, chrysogine and fungisporin were removed. This resulted in a minimal secondary metabolite background. Amino acid pools under steady-state growth conditions showed reduc...

CRISPR/Cas9 based systems have emerged as versatile platforms for precision genome editing in a wide range of organisms. Here we have developed powerful CRISPR/Cas9 tools for marker-based and marker-free genome modifications in Penicillium chrysogenum, a model filamentous fungus and industrially relevant cell factory. The developed CRISPR/Cas9 tool...

Background Filamentous fungi are important producers of secondary metabolites, low molecular weight molecules that often have bioactive properties. Calbistrin A is a secondary metabolite with an interesting structure that was recently found to have bioactivity against leukemia cells. It consists of two polyketides linked by an ester bond: a bicycli...

Filamentous fungi are known producers of bioactive natural products, low molecular weight molecules that arise from secondary metabolism. MbtH-like proteins (MLPs) are small (~10 kDa) proteins, which associate non-covalently with adenylation domains of some bacterial nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS). MLPs promote the folding, stability, and...

Background: The circular economy closes loops in industrial manufacturing processes and minimizes waste. A bio-based economy aims to replace fossil-based resources and processes by sustainable alternatives which exploits renewable biomass for the generation of products used in our daily live. A current trend in fungal biotechnology-the production...

Humanity is often fascinated by structures and materials developed by Nature. While structural materials such as wood have been widely studied, the structural and mechanical properties of fungi are still largely unknown. One of the structurally interesting fungi is the polypore Fomes fomentarius. The present study deals with the investigation of th...

Background To achieve climate neutrality, fundamentally new concepts of circularity need to be implemented by the building sector as it contributes to 40% of anthropogenic CO 2 emission. Fungal biotechnology can make a significant contribution here and help eliminate fossil dependency for building material production. Recently, we have shown that t...

Melanins are complex pigments with various biological functions and potential applications in space exploration and biomedicine due to their radioprotective properties. Aspergillus niger, a fungus known for its high radiation resistance, is widely used in biotechnology and a candidate for melanin production. In this study, we investigated the produ...

MY-CO SPACE is a collaborative work of the interdisciplinary SciArt collective MY-CO-X, that enables an artistic-scientific discussion about a future social significance of fungi for the creation of places and spaces. MY-CO SPACE is a wooden fungal sculpture that was built from biological materials and is biodegradable. The living space of approx....

Background Filamentous fungi of the phylum Basidiomycota are considered as an attractive source for the biotechnological production of composite materials. The ability of many basidiomycetes to accept residual lignocellulosic plant biomass from agriculture and forestry such as straw, shives and sawdust as substrates and to bind and glue together th...

Lab-cultivated mycelia of Fomes fomentarius (FF), grown on a solid lignocellulose medium (FF-SM) and a liquid glucose medium (FF-LM), and naturally grown fruiting bodies (FF-FB) were studied as biosorbents for the removal of organic dyes methylene blue and Congo red (CR). Both the chemical and microstructural differences were revealed using X-ray p...

Background Recent efforts in fungal biotechnology aim to develop new concepts and technologies that convert renewable plant biomass into innovative biomaterials. Hereby, plant substrates become metabolized by filamentous fungi to transform them into new fungal-based materials. Current research is thus focused on both understanding and optimizing th...

Filamentous fungi are highly productive cell factories, often used in industry for the production of enzymes and small bioactive compounds. Recent years have seen an increasing number of synthetic-biology-based applications in fungi, emphasizing the need for a synthetic biology toolkit for these organisms. Here we present a collection of 96 genetic...

There is an urgent need for novel bioactive molecules in both agriculture and medicine. The genomes of fungi are thought to contain vast numbers of metabolic pathways involved in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites with diverse bioactivities.

Over three quarters of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, and cities currently generate annually 85% of global GDP (gross domestic product), two thirds of all greenhouse gases, and half of global waste. The challenges of rapid growth, the intensification of resource use and pressure on citizens’ quality of life are factors that als...

We present a Penicillium rubens strain with an industrial background in which the four highly expressed biosynthetic gene clusters (BGC) required to produce penicillin, roquefortine, chrysogine and fungisporin were removed. This resulted in a minimal secondary metabolite background. Amino acid pools under steady-state growth conditions showed reduc...

Fungal secondary metabolites are widely used as therapeutics and are vital components of drug discovery programs. A major challenge hindering discovery of novel secondary metabolites is that the underlying pathways involved in their biosynthesis are transcriptionally silent in typical laboratory growth conditions, making it difficult to identify th...

We present a Penicillium rubens strain with an industrial background in which the four highly expressed biosynthetic gene clusters (BGC) required to produce penicillin, roquefortine, chrysogine and fungisporin were removed. This resulted in a minimal secondary metabolite background. Amino acid pools under steady-state growth conditions showed reduc...

This thesis presents the adaption of the RNA-guided endonuclease Cas9 for engineering the genome of the ascomycete fungus P. chrysogenum, whereby the insertion of a donor DNA is greatly facilitated. The approach of delivering the Cas9 protein and the sgRNA as a preassembled ribonucleoprotein particle was further demonstrated in P. decumbens and led...

Several CRISPR/Cas9 tools have been recently established for precise genome editing in a wide range of filamentous fungi. This genome editing platform offers high flexibility in target selection and the possibility of introducing genetic deletions without the introduction of transgenic sequences . This chapter describes an approach for the transfor...

Background The crisis of antibiotic resistance has been much dis cussed in recent decades within research communities and also in public. However, options to slow down the spread of resistance and the opportunities to discover new antimicrobial agents seem to be limited at present. Can we, by unlocking the hidden potential of fungi, attain new mean...

During the last decade microarrays have become a powerful analytical tool. Commonly microarrays are produced in a non-contact manner using silicone printheads. However, silicone printheads are expensive and not able to be used as a disposable. Here, we show the development and functional characterization of 8-channel plastic microarray printheads t...