The Hyphal Tip: Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics

CNN reports on a giant (25 ft tall) prehistoric fungus classified by C. Kevin Boyce and collegues. Also see U Chicago press release and Softpedia articles about the manuscript entitled Devonian landscape heterogeneity recorded by a giant fungus published in Geology describing the Prototaxites fossil.  It has apparently been studied for quite a long time (150 years) to no avail.

We got word last week from the JGI that our DNA for Neurospora tetrasperma and N. discreta have passed QC and library QC and are on their way to being sequenced. The center also plans to do some EST sequencing to improve gene calling abilities. Why more Neurospora genomes? The sequencing proposal discussed these species as a model system for evolutionary and ecological genetics.