Filipins: The first antifungal "weed killers" identified from bacteria isolated from the trap-ant

Hong Gao, Sabine Grüschow, Jörg Barke, Ryan F. Seipke, Lionel M. Hill, Jérôme Orivel, Douglas W. Yu, Matthew Hutchings, Rebecca J.M. Goss

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    10 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Allomerus ants ensure that they have sufficient nitrogen in their diet by trapping and consuming other insects. In order to construct their traps, like the more extensively studied leaf cutter ants, they employ fungal farming. Pest management within these fungal cultures has been speculated to be due to the ants' usage of actinomycetes capable of producing antifungal compounds, analogous to the leafcutter ant mutualism. Here we report the first identification of a series of antifungal compounds, the filipins, and their associated biosynthetic genes isolated from a bacterium associated with this system.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)57267-57270
    Number of pages4
    Journal RSC Advances
    Volume4
    Issue number100
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2014

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