High Cell Wall Galactosamine Content and Virus Particles in Penicillium stoloniferum

Abstract

RECENTLY it has been shown^1,2 that the active component of Statolon, an antiviral agent isolated from 5 day old culture filtrates of Penicillium stoloniferum (strain American Type Culture Collection—ATCC 14586), is double stranded RNA of viral origin, and not a complex polysaccharide as originally suggested³. During this investigation it was discovered that Statolon contained three discrete polysaccharides, readily separable by high voltage paper electrophoresis: a heteroglycan, containing galacturonic acid, galactose, xylose, arabinose and rhamnose; a glucan of the amylopectin–glycogen type (unpublished results of K. W. B., E. B. C. and J. M. Tyler) and a polymer of galactosamine, derived from lysis of the fungal cell wall. We now report that galactosamine is a major constituent of the cell wall of the virus-containing strain of P. stoloniferum (ATCC 14586); in contrast, cell walls of four naturally occurring virus-free^* strains of P. stoloniferum (ATCC 10111, Commonwealth Mycological Institute 31200, 91960 and 92219) and a virus-free^* isolate (ATCC 14586 B3/1) derived from the infected strain by heat treatment of spores¹ contained only very small amounts of galactosamine. (It is possible that this heat treatment procedure resulted in selection of either a heat resistant or a mutant strain of ATCC 14586.)