Smellyhobbit said:

I haven’t gone through post by post, but I’m going to be throwing some swabs in baggies on a dehydrator for a couple of hours today. See if I can clean it up a little. I’ll post results when I get them 🤘

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Smellyhobbit said:

I set it to 140° for 2 hours. Reasonably I think I could have put it to 150°.

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RoscoeReturns said:

At this point I don’t think I’ll be pursuing this further. It seems the line between killing bacteria and killing cube spores is rather fine. I was surprised by this. I was sure I had germinated spores from a dehydrated fruit. Perhaps dehydrated spores are better able to tolerate the heat? Unfortunately that doesn’t bode well for spores in a syringe. I’ll be following along to see everyone else’s results.

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Quote:

Water Retention and Repellency - Scientific studies confirm that hydrophobins create water-repellent layers on fungal surfaces. These proteins can "self-assemble into stable monolayers" at interfaces and change surface wettability properties. This hydrophobic barrier helps prevent dehydration during heat stress by controlling water movement.


Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42705-w
Structural Integrity Maintenance - Hydrophobins contain disulfide bonds that provide structural stability. These bonds help maintain the integrity of fungal cell walls even at elevated temperatures, preventing collapse of cellular structures.


Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19458-0
Thermal Char Formation - The cysteine-rich protein components of mycelium (specifically hydrophobins) contain disulfide bonds that break down at high temperatures to generate char-promoting hydrogen disulfide (H₂S) molecules. This char formation creates a protective layer against heat transfer.


Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19458-0
Fire Retardant Properties - Studies show that mycelium has significantly lower combustion propensity compared to synthetic materials like PMMA and PLA. The presence of hydrophobins contributes to this natural fire resistance.


Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36032-9
Heat Stress Adaptation - Research has shown that certain fungi can adapt to stressful conditions, with some hydrophobin gene expressions helping with "oxidative, acid or heat stress". This suggests that hydrophobins play a role in overall stress resilience including heat tolerance.


Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00751/full
Class Differences in Heat Stability - Class I hydrophobins are specifically "resistant to detergents and high temperatures," while Class II hydrophobins are less stable. This demonstrates specialized evolution for heat protection.


Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42705-w

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Stipe-n Cap said:

Both Pheno and Smelly seem to be getting decent results with this. Looking forward to seeing what happens with the above post.

@Rosco: perhaps fresh spores were the issue?

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