Hydrophobin fusion products, production and use thereof

1. A polypeptide of the general structural formula (I)

X n —C 1 —X 1-50 —C 2 —X 0-5 —C 3 —X 1-100 —C 4 —X 1-100 —C 5 —X 1-50 —C 6 —X 0-5 —C 7 —X 1-50 C 8 —X m   (I)

wherein X is any of the 20 naturally occurring amino acids,

n and m are numbers between 0 and 500,

C is cysteine,

with the proviso that at least one of the peptide sequences abbreviated as X n or X m is a peptide sequence of at least 20 amino acids in length that is not linked naturally to a hydrophobin and X n or X m comprises an amino acid sequence selected from SEQ ID NOs: 16 and 18, and wherein the polypeptide changes the contact angle of a drop of water on a glass surface by at least 20° after coating the glass surface with the polypeptide.

2. The polypeptide of claim 1 , wherein the structural formula (I) comprises a Class I hydrophobin.

3. The polypeptide of claim 1 , wherein the structural formula (I) comprises a hydrophobin selected from the group consisting of dewA, rodA, sc3, hypA, hypB, basf1, and basf2.

4. The polypeptide of claim 1 , wherein the structural formula (I) comprises a sequence selected from SEQ ID NO: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14.

5. The polypeptide of claim 1 , wherein X n or X m is a (His) 4-10 sequence.

6. The polypeptide of claim 1 , wherein the structural formula (I) comprises polypeptides selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 20, 22, and 24.

7. A method for coating a surface with a hydrophobin, the method comprising coating the surface with the polypeptide of claim 1 .

8. A nucleic acid coding for the polypeptide of claim 1 .

9. A method of producing the polypeptide of claim 1 , the method comprising expressing in a host organism a nucleic acid encoding the polypeptide of claim 1 and isolating the protein obtained.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the host organism is E. coli.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the protein is isolated after purification.