Talaromyces marneffei (Basionym: Penicillium marneffei) is a significant opportunistic fungal pathogen in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus in Southeast Asia. T. marneffei cells have been shown to become melanized in vivo. Melanins are pigment biopolymers which act as a non-specific protectant against various stressors and which play an important role during virulence in fungi...

Melanins are a family of heterogeneous polymeric pigments that provide ultraviolet (UV) light protection, structural support, coloration, and free radical scavenging. Formed by oxidative oligomerization of catecholic small molecules, the physical properties of melanins are influenced by covalent and noncovalent disorder. We report the use of tyrosine-containing tripeptides as tunable precursors...

Human skin, especially the epidermis, contains several major solar ultraviolet-radiation- (UVR-) absorbing endogenous chromophores including DNA, urocanic acid, amino acids, melanins and their precursors and metabolites. The lack of solubility of melanins prevents their absorption spectra being defined by routine techniques. Indirect spectroscopic methods show that their spectral properties dep...

Melanins are pigmentary macromolecules found throughout the biosphere that, in the 1970s, were discovered to conduct electricity and display bistable switching. Since then, it has been widely believed that melanins are naturally occurring amorphous organic semiconductors. Here, we report electrical conductivity, muon spin relaxation, and electron paramagnetic resonance measurements of melanin a...

Pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was used lo characterize fungal melanins and model phenolic polymers. Snmples wcre pyrolysed at 700"C for 10 s and the low boiling-point compounds were separated on a Chromosorb 102 column. Low boiling-point compounds ídentified with a mass spectrometer coupled lo the gas chromatograph were ver)' similar for peplone, a modcl autoxidative phenolic p...

Melanins form a diverse group of pigments synthesized in living organisms in the course of hydroxylation and polymerization of organic compounds. Melanin production is observed in all large taxa from both Pro- and Eukaryota. The basic functions of melanins are still a matter of controversy and speculation, even though their adaptative importance has been proved. Melanogenesis has probably evolv...