Thursday, October 02, 2008

Penicillin is BLUE-GREEN


Penicillin is blue to blue-green, not gray and hairy.

Interestingly, not all "cultivars" of Penicillium chrysogenum produce penicillin. And, these molds produce other things, including:

It is the source of several β-lactam antibiotics, most significantly penicillin. Other secondary metabolites of P. chrysogenum include various different penicillins, roquefortine C, meleagrin, chrysogine, xanthocillins, secalonic acids, sorrentanone, sorbicillin, and PR-toxin.

[...]

The airborne spores of P. chrysogenum are important human allergens. Vacuolar and alkaline serine proteases have been implicated as the major allergenic proteins.

Definitely not all fun and games.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home