Some links

I’ve been too busy to post much these last few days, but here are a few links to some papers I found interesting in my recent browsing.

• FOLy: an integrated database for the classification and functional annotation of fungal oxidoreductases potentially involved in the degradation of lignin and related aromatic compounds – so a database of these enzymes from several different fungi including some of the white rot fungi. I’ll be curious to see how the brown rot fungus Postia‘s genome complement compares.
• Evolution of host resistance in a toxin-producing bacterial–fungal alliance. Some more fungal-bacterial symbosis work in Rhizopus that follows on previous work that shows that the bacterial make a toxin that is anti-mitotic, so how does this not affect the host fungus? The authors use a phylogenetics and character state reconstruction to argue that ancestral fungi were sensitive to the toxin (rhizoxin) but that the extant resistant taxa all derive from a single ancestor. So I guess the resistance only evolved once is another way to say that.
• New extremophile fungi: Psychrophilic basidiomycete yeast were isolated from Himalayan lake soil and is another Cryptococcus species. I wonder what Neil and his psychro-phile thinking would do with these?

Schmitt, I., Partida-Martinez, L.P., Winkler, R., Voigt, K., Einax, E., Dölz, F., Telle, S., Wöstemeyer, J., Hertweck, C. (2008). Evolution of host resistance in a toxin-producing bacterial–fungal alliance. The ISME Journal DOI: 10.1038/ismej.2008.19

LEVASSEUR, A. (2008). FOLy: an integrated database for the classification and functional annotation of fungal oxidoreductases potentially involved in the degradation of lignin and related aromatic compounds. Fungal Genetics and Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.fgb.2008.01.004

Shivaji, S., Bhadra, B., Rao, R.S., Pradhan, S. (2008). Rhodotorula himalayensis sp. nov., a novel psychrophilic yeast isolated from Roopkund Lake of the Himalayan mountain ranges, India. Extremophiles DOI: 10.1007/s00792-008-0144-z