The transcriptional response of bioreactor-grown Aspergillus niger cultures towards three oils

The industrially important fungus Aspergillus niger feeds naturally on decomposing plant material, for which it is equipped with a range of enzyme systems. A significant proportion of plant material are lipids that might be available either as for energy storage or as membrane building blocks. With 63 potential lipase-encoding genes in its genome, A. niger has the tools to degrade these extracellular lipids. In contrast to polysaccharide-degrading enzyme networks not much is known about the signalling and regulatory processes that control lipase expression and activity in fungi both under laboratory and natural occurring conditions