Trehalose accumulation in Baudoinia compniacensis following abiotic stress

Baudoinia compniacensis is a microfungus recently described as the principal agent of fouling known as ''warehouse staining'', affecting building exteriors, fixtures and vegetation surfaces in areas proximate to distillery aging warehouses, commercial bakeries and other areas subject to low-level ethanol vapour exposure. The surfaces most affected tend to be highly exposed and undergo extreme diurnal temper- ature fluctuations. In previous work, we have demonstrated the existence of heat-inducible putative chaperone proteins that may also be induced by low-level exposures to ethanol vapour (e.g., <10 ppm). The present study investigated the cellular accumulation of trehalose, a disaccharide identified in some microorganisms to be important in the protection of cell components during adverse stress conditions, such as thermal stress. Following heat shock at 45 � C, we observed a 2.5-fold accumulation of trehalose relative to unheated controls maintained at 26