Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics

The genome of Podospora anserina S mat+ strain was sequenced by Genoscope and CNRS and published recently in Genome Biology. The genome sequence data has been available for several years, but it is great to see a publication describing the findings.  The 10X genome assembly with ~10,000 genes provides an important dataset for comparisons

Depleted uranium (DU) from spent ammunition used in the conflicts in Iraq and the Balkans poses a health risk to the inhabitants of those regions. This paper in Current Biology from Marina Fomina et al shows that several species of fungi including one from the mycorrhizal genus Rhizopogon

Neil has a great summary of the results from the Platypus genome sequencing project.

The transcriptional landscape of yeast has been (further) defined with Solexa sequencing in a method deemed "RNA-Seq", but what I would call "deep EST sequencing".  This approach for transcriptional profiling by sequencing alone is sure to be used by many labs looking for lower and more complete ways to describe and quantitate the full population of transcripts in an organism.

NYT article on the work of Paul Stamets using fungi like Pleurotus for Dioxin cleanup in Ft Bragg, CA.

Thanks for the link Pat!

Spread of wheat rust Puccinia strain Ug99 and consequences on already strained food supplies is discussed in an Op-Ed piece covered in GeneticMaize

A paper in Science from Jason Crawford and colleagues explores the function of polyketide synthetases (PKS) in the synthesis of the secondary metabolite and carcinogen aflatoxin. Previous work (nicely reviewed in the fungi by Nancy Keller and colleagues) has shown the the PKS genes have several domains. These domains include acyl carrier protein (ACP), transacylase (SAT), ketosynthase (KS), malonyl-CoA:ACP transacylase (MAT), “product template” PT, Aand thioesterase/Claisen cyclase (TE/CLC).

EMBO Workshop on Evolutionary and Environmental Genomics of Yeasts taking place at EMBL Heidelberg, 1-5 October 2008

Jennifer from the other end of the lab just showed me the Rhizoctonia solani genome project page at JCVI.  Another Basidiomycete genome on the way, yah!

A link to the story about Matteo Garbelotto's work on Phytophthora ramorum and showing that the source in California is likely from ornamentals from a nursery. The work is to appear soon in Molecular Ecology but alas is not available yet.

A recent paper on updated Phytophthora phylogeny from Jamie Blair and co-authors is also out in FGB.