Figure 3. Depletion of CchA/MidA resulted in conidiation defects in an inoculum-size-dependent way.

(A) Colony and conidiation phenotype comparison of wild-type, alcA(p)::cchA, alcA(p)::midA, ΔcchA, ΔmidA strains. A total of 2 µl of 10⁹ conidia ml⁻¹ were spotted on the induced (MMPGR), repressed (MMPDR and YAG) media respectively. (B) Conidiation phenotypes in wild-type and cchA/midA mutants at a series of 2 µl 10-fold dilutions derived from a starting suspension of 10⁹ conidia ml⁻¹ on MMPDR. (C) The bar diagram showing the quantification of conidia for whole colony in a dilution-series of inoculum size as indicated. The value is means ± SD of three independent experiments. The significance was set at level **p<0.01 compared with the control group (WT). (D) A loopful of spores from ΔmidA strain CJA08 were streaked on MMPDR until to obtain single spore inoculum, then incubated at 37°C for 48 h, showing the conidiation defect of ΔmidA was in an inoculum-size-dependent way.