FUNGAL HYDROPHOBINS - PROTEINS THAT FUNCTION AT AN INTERFACE

Hydrophobins are small, moderately hydrophobic proteins secreted by fu ngi and containing eight cysteine residues in a conserved pattern. Mos t hydrophobins have been discovered as putative products of genes abun dantly expressed in development, pathogenesis and symbiosis. Those tha t have been purified exhibit interfacial self-assembly into amphipathi c protein films that can be extremely insoluble. These protein films a rise at the surface of emergent structures, such as aerial hyphae, fru it bodies and air-borne spores and they line air channels in tissues, conferring hydrophobicity to these surfaces. Hydrophobins may also be responsible for adherence of hyphae to each other and to hydrophobic s urfaces of other organisms, as in pathogenic interactions.