The Hyphal Tip

Several more fungi are on the docket for sequencing at JGI through their community sequencing program. This includes

• The Dothideomycete leaf streak disease causing fungus Mycosphaerella fijiensis
• Soybean rust Phakopsora pachyrhizi
• The Basidiomycete and jelly fungus Tremella mesenterica proposed by Joe Heitman for use as outgroup to the human pathogen Cryptococcus
• The plant pathogen Cochliobolus heterostrophus proposed by Gillian Turgeon which ironically was already sequenced at the now closed Syngenta Torrey Mesa Research Institute (i.e. this paper on NRPS which used the genome)
• The Sordariale Thielavia terrestris proposed by Novoenzymes presumably for potential in producing novel cellulases as part of biofuel production research.
• The Sordariale and Chestnut blight fungus Cryphonectria parasitica
• EST sequencing for Aspergillus terreus proposed by Scott Baker at PNNL
• Scott is also helping lead a projects to sequence Piromyces and Orpinomyces both early branching Neocallimastigomycota fungi that live in the rumen (which I am probably a little too excited about). Apparently the high A-T content is causing problems in the sequencing phase.
• Agaricus bisporus, sadly the only mushroom some people ever eat (canned and put on pizza or from canned soup), proposed by Mike Challen is also slated to be sequencing in 2008. Did Campell's already sequence it anyways? We got to see them in their non-native habitat on a field trip in the fall (more pictures!).
• The Basidiomycete EM fungus Paxillus involutus proposed by Anders Tunlid will complement ongoing work in plant-fungal association work.
• Heterobasidion annosu, a basidiomycete fungal pathogen of conifers.
• Three Neurospora genomes proposed by our lab
• The oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus
• The amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis that I'm working on with collaborators at Berkeley and the Broad Institute (which sequenced another strain)
• Trichoderma actrovirdi (which doesn't appear to have any sequence in GenBank) is reportedly in production (bottom of the page).

This complements an ever growing list of fungal genome sequences which is probably topping 80+ now not including the several dozen strains of Saccharomyces that are being sequenced at Sanger Centre and a separately funded NIH project to be sequenced at WashU.