As the ability of the fungus to metabolize NeuNAc is an important issue, a possible uptake of NeuNAc by H. jecorina was investigated. Therefore, the fungus was pre-grown on glycerol in liquid culture, and half of the mycelium was autoclaved and half of it was harvested. The dead and living mycelia were transferred to glycerol-containing medium to study growth conditions or to medium without a carbon source to study resting cell conditions. NeuNAc was added to both media, and cultures were incubated for 8 h. Supernatants from all conditions were analyzed after incubation for 0 and 8 h by HPLC after derivatization using 1,2-diamino-4,5-methylenedioxybenzene dihydrochloride (DMB). Similar amounts of NeuNAc were present under all conditions regardless of whether the fungus was alive or dead ( Figure 2a ). This result indicates that NeuNAc uptake does not occur in H. jecorina. As a positive control experiment we did a similar experiment but instead of NeuNAc, GlcNAc was added to the media. As can be inferred from Figure 2b GlcNAc was completely consumed after eight hours under both growth and resting cell conditions when the mycelium was viable.