Fig. 7

Maintenance of high lignocellulase gene expression levels in ΔNcap3m relative to the wild-type strain (WT) at the late fermentation stage. After ΔNcap3m and WT conidia were grown on Avicel for 4, 48, 96, or 168 h, the transcriptional abundance of three major lignocellulase genes was evaluated by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). The data are normalized to the expression of the WT strain at 48 h for each tested gene, with actin (NCU04173) gene expression levels used as an endogenous control in all samples (standard error of the mean, n = 3). Asterisks indicate significant differences from the control (*P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001; ns not significant) based on one-way analysis of variance.