Assays of cellular stress.

1. Fresh conidia of the WT and mutant strains were harvested from cultures grown on mCDB plates at 28° C for 12 days and afterwards filtered using sterile Mira cloth.

2. 1 ul of conidia suspension containing 5000 conidia of the WT or mutant strains were inoculated on mCDB plates previously supplemented with 0.8 M NACl and 1 M KCl for osmotic stress assay.

3. For oxidative and cell wall perturbing stress, same procedure in step (2) was repeated.

4. All cultures were incubated at 28° C for 4 days.