Abstract
Cerulenin inhibited growth of yeast-type fungi and several kinds of filamentous fungi, and Candida stellatoidea was the most sensitive among them. The antifungal ac-tivity of cerulenin was not reversed by amino acids, and purine and pyrimidine derivatives, but it was reversed especially by ergocalciferol, and to a certain extent by retinol, thiamine, pantothenic acid, lauric acid and oleic acid. However, the amount of ergosterol in the cells of C. stellatoidea decreased at the growth inhibitory concentration of cerulenin. In addition, cerulenin markedly inhibited the incorpora-tion of 14C-acetate into sterols and fatty acids in whole cells of the yeast. In contrast, the antibiotic did not inhibit significantly the incorporation of 32P-phosphoric acid into nucleic acids, and the incorporation of 14C-amino acids into protein. The antibiotic had no effect on the incorporation of 14C-glucosamine and 14C-mannose into the cell wall, and it did not prevent the exogenous respiration of the yeast.
These results suggested that cerulenin affected lipid metabolism, especially bio-syntheses of sterols or fatty acids.
