Penicillium roqueforti is used in the production of several kinds of ripened blue-veined cheeses. In addition, this fungus produces interesting secondary metabolites such as roquefortine C, andrastin A and mycophenolic acid. To date, there is scarce information concerning the regulation of the production of these secondary metabolites. Recently, the gene named pcz1 (Penicillium C6 zinc domain protein 1) was described in P. roqueforti, which encodes for a Zn(II)₂Cys₆ protein that controls growth and developmental processes in this fungus. However, its effect on secondary metabolism is currently unknown. In this work, we have analyzed how the overexpression and down-regulation of pcz1 affect the production of roquefortine C, andrastin A and mycophenolic acid in P. roqueforti. The three metabolites were drastically reduced in the pcz1 down-regulated strains. However, when pcz1 was overexpressed, only mycophenolic acid was overproduced while, on the contrary, levels of roquefortine C and andrastin A were diminished. Importantly, these results match the expression pattern of key genes involved in the biosynthesis of these metabolites. Taken together, our results suggest that Pcz1 plays a key role in regulating secondary metabolism in the fungus Penicillium roqueforti.

罗克福尔蒂青霉用于生产多种成熟的蓝纹奶酪。此外，这种真菌还产生令人感兴趣的次级代谢产物，例如罗克福汀C，雄激素A和霉酚酸。迄今为止，关于这些次级代谢产物产生的调控的信息很少。最近，已命名的基因pcz1（青霉C6锌域蛋白1）中进行了说明P.娄地，这对于将Zn（II）编码₂的Cys ₆蛋白质，其控制生长和发育过程中这种真菌。然而，其对次级代谢的作用目前未知。在这项工作中，我们分析了pcz1的过度表达和下调影响生产roquefortine的C，andrastin A和霉酚酸在P.娄。pcz1下调菌株中的三种代谢产物急剧减少。但是，当pcz1过表达时，仅麦考酚酸被过量生产，而相反，roquefortine C和andrastin A的水平降低。重要的是，这些结果与参与这些代谢物生物合成的关键基因的表达模式相匹配。两者合计，我们的结果表明，Pcz1在调节真菌青霉中的次级代谢中起关键作用。