Farnesol-induced hyperbranched morphology with short hyphae and bulbous tips of Coriolus versicolor

As the first fungal quorum sensing molecule, farnesol-induced morphological transition is usually studied in dimorphic fungi, but in basidiomycetes the morphological changes regulated by farnesol are rarely investigated. In this study, we found that farnesol made the basidiomycete Coriolus versicolor develop into a hyperbranched morphology with short hyphae and bulbous tips. Farnesol treatment resulted in a significant increase of intracellular oxidative stress level, which influenced the expression of several morphogenesis-related genes, and thereby led to the morphological changes. High oxidative stress level significantly stimulated the expression of laccase genes for improving intracellular laccase biosynthesis. The resulted hyperbranched morphology further accelerated the secretion of intracellular laccase into culture medium. As a result, extracellular laccase production reached a maximum of 2189.2 ± 54.7 U/L in farnesol-induced cultures, which was 6.8-fold greater than that of control cultures. SDS-PAGE and native-PAGE showed that farnesol increased laccase production by promoting the biosynthesis of three laccase isoforms. Together these results provide new opportunities in not only understanding the farnesol-regulated mycelial morphology in basidiomycetes, but also developing novel strategies for enhancing the production of secreted enzymes of biotechnological interest.