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Defining “gene”

The term “gene” might be tired and perhaps because it can have many different meanings – (don’t get us started on homolog!). We of course know that one gene/one enzyme hypothesis and the central dogma fails to represent full complexity of the RNA world, pre- and post-transcriptional gene regulation, and post-transcriptional modifications. An [...]

Stagonospora nodorum genome published

The Stagonospra nodorum (teleomorph Phaeosphaeria nodorum) genome is now published in Plant Cell, “Sequencing and EST Analysis of the Wheat Pathogen Stagonospora nodorum”. The paper describes the sequencing and analysis of this Dothideomycete fungus. The analyses included identifying genes likely involved in pathogenecity such as PKS and NRPS genes and enabled the discovery of [...]

Saccharomyces strain sequencing

While many strains of S. cerevisiae are being sequenced, a single strain, YJM789, isolated from the lung of an AIDS patient was sequenced a few years ago at Stanford and published this summer. The genome was described in a paper entitled “Genome sequencing and comparative analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain YJM789″.

This fungus will trap you (if you are a Nematode)

Fungi, like most organisms, take an active role in finding food for survival. When thinking about hostile takeovers by fungi, one probably thinks about mycelia growing towards nutrients, rotting plant matter, the ability to extract nutrients from a living host, or perhaps producing toxins or secondary metabolites that can affect the host. However, [...]

Banana black leaf fungus sequenced

The JGI have released the genome sequence and annotation of the Mycosphaerella fijiensis fungus an important crop pathogen of bananas. This Dothideomycete fungus is one of several in the clade of important plant pathogens that have been sequenced recently including M. gramicola, a relative that causes wheat-blotch.

Amanita toxin genes

Michigan State researchers Heather Hallen and Jonathan Walton have reportedly cloned genes from Amanita for alpha-amanitin (mispelled as alpha-aminitin in NYTimes article) which inhibits RNA polymerase II and phallacidin which inhibits actin filament polymerization. The gene sequences are in GenBank for those itching to look at evolutionary relationships of these genes in other fungi.

This [...]

Linkathon

Robin reviews recent Nature paper by Ilan Wapinski et al describing the orthogroups they built from multiple fungal genomes. I’ve been remiss in reviewing the paper myself, but they’ve created an important resource in the SYNERGY tool for orthology identification and a database of orthologs of some ascomycete fungi. I am excited there [...]

Dandruff genomics

According to Yahoo News (via GT) , Proctor and Gamble published the genome of the dandruff in PNAS (link not yet available) causing basidiomycete fungus Malassezia globosa. The proteins and genome are available at NCBI.

Update: PNAS paper available.

Spacial Epidemiology

New resource on spacialepidemiology.net has maps of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis infections worldwide. Demoed at recent conference.