Carot-4-en-9,10-diol, a conidiation-inducing sesquiterpene diol produced by Trichoderma virens PS1-7 upon exposure to chemical stress from highly active iron chelators.

To screen biocontrol agents against Burkholderia plantarii, the causative agent of rice seedling blight, we employed catechol, an analog of the virulence factor tropolone, to obtain chemical stress-resistant microorganisms. The fungal isolate PS1-7, identified as a strain of Trichoderma virens, showed the highest resistance to catechol (20 mM) and exhibited efficacy as a biocontrol agent for rice seedling blight. During investigation of metabolic traits of T. virens PS1-7 exposed to catechol, we found a secondary metabolite that was released extracellularly and uniquely accumulated in the culture. The compound induced by chemical stress due to catechol was subsequently isolated and identified as a sesquiterpene diol, carot-4-en-9,10-diol, based on spectroscopic analyses. T. virens PS1-7 produced carot-4-en-9,10-diol as a metabolic response to tropolone at concentrations from 0.05 to 0.2 mM, and the response was enhanced in a dose-dependent manner, similar to its response to catechol at concentrations from 0.1 to 1 mM. Some iron chelators, such as pyrogallol, gallic acid, salicylic acid, and citric acid, at 0.5 mM also showed activation of T. virens PS1-7 production of carot-4-en-9,10-diol. This sesquiterpene diol, formed in response to chemical stress, promoted conidiation of T. virens PS1-7, suggesting that it is involved in an autoregulatory signaling system. In a bioassay of the metabolic and morphological responses of T. virens PS1-7, conidiation in hyphae grown on potato dextrose agar (PDA) plates was either promoted or induced by carot-4-en-9,10-diol. Carot-4-en-9,10-diol can thus be regarded as an autoregulatory signal in T. virens, and our findings demonstrate that intrinsic intracellular signaling regulates conidiation of T. virens.