{"doi":"10.1128/aem.00415-23","title":"Ergot Alkaloids Contribute to the Pathogenic Potential of the Fungus <i>Aspergillus leporis</i>","abstract":"Certain environmental fungi infect animals occasionally or conditionally, whereas others do not. Factors that affect the virulence of these opportunistically pathogenic fungi may have originally evolved to fill some other role for the fungus in its primary environmental niche. Among the factors that may improve the virulence of opportunistic fungi are specialized metabolites--chemicals that are not essential for basic life functions but provide producers with an advantage in particular environments or under specific conditions. Ergot alkaloids are a large family of fungal specialized metabolites that contaminate crops in agriculture and serve as the foundations of numerous pharmaceuticals. Our results show that two ergot alkaloid-producing fungi that were not previously known to be opportunistic pathogens can infect a model insect and that, in at least one of the species, an ergot alkaloid increases the virulence of the fungus.","journal":"Applied and Environmental Microbiology","year":2023,"id":359399,"datarank":0.41857698973605734,"base_score":2.3978952727983707,"endowment":2.3978952727983707,"self_citation_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citation_network_contribution":0.05889269881630166,"self_endowment_contribution":0.3596842909197557,"citer_contribution":0.05889269881630166,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":5,"citers_with_citation_signal":3,"citers_with_endowment":3,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9521,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"Dryad":["10.5061/dryad.r7sqv9shm"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":463968,"name":"Daniel G. Panaccione","orcid":"0000-0002-4159-164X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1110000,"name":"Abigail M. Jones","orcid":"0000-0001-6319-2765","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":56,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:52.889556Z","pmid":"37212708","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}