The Tremella mesenterica genome portal is live on the JGI site. Tremella is a Basidiomycete jelly fungus and an interesting study system from the perspective of discovery of novel lignin degrading enzymes. It also occupies an interesting phylogenetic position being an outgroup to the human pathogenic yeast Cryptococcus neoformans and C. [...]
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An avid reader pointed out that I was not entirely thorough in describing that we don’t enough about the V8 agar media that is used to induce mating in Cryptococcus. In fact a great deal of work on mating in this fungus had focused on identifying what pathways are induced by V8 agar that [...] A paper in IJSEM describes a new species in the Cryptococcus basidiomycete yeast lineage. The name is proposed as Cryptococcus keelungensis sp. nov. for a strain isolated from the sea surface microlayer. Its identity as a Cryptococcus sp was determined by sequencing of 26S rDNA D1/D2 and ITS loci and molecular phylogenetics. This is quite diverged from the human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii as the new species falls in the order Filobasidiales while C. neoformans is classified in the order Tremellales. Interestingly, based on the phylogeny in the paper it seems to be relatively close to newly discovered Cryptococcus [...] A new and improved annotation of Cryptococcus neoformans var grubii strain H99 (serotype A) has been made available in GenBank and the Broad Institute website. This update is collaboration between several groups providing data and analyses and the annotation team at Broad’s gene calling [...] The Scientist has an article about airborne opportunistic fungal infections and interviewing several Cryptococcus researchers including Karen Bartlett and James Fraser.
Eucalyptus is an utilitarian tree, so it’s no surprise that several organizations are interested in genetically engineering it. Indeed, its genome sequence is slated for release, which should facilitate a GE market for the species. One company in particular – ArborGen (they have a very interesting mission statement) – is using genetic engineering, cloning and classic hybridization techniques to make a cold tolerant [...] Several more fungi are on the docket for sequencing at JGI through their community sequencing program. This includes
As announced at the Fungal Genetics meeting, the FGI at the Broad Institute is focusing on clusters of genomes rather than single ones. Some of genome projects are already grouped.
I’m including a recapping as many of the talks as I remember. There were 6 concurrent sessions each afternoon so you have to miss a lot of talks. The conference was bursting at the seams as it was- at least 140 people had to be turned away beyond the 750 who attended. If there was any theme in the conference it was “Hey we are all using these genome [...] |
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