By Jason Stajich, on November 23rd, 2008
Genome survey sequencing (1.9X coverage) was generated for Moniliophthora perniciosa, the cause of witches’ broom disease on cacao plants. The sequence for this basidiomycete plant pathogen was published in BMC Genomics this week. The authors report a higher number of ROS metabolism and P450 genes. Evaluating whether these copy number differences are significantly different [...]
By Jason Stajich, on October 5th, 2008
A paper (Park et al, BMC Genomics) from Fungal Bioinformatics Lab at Seoul University in South Korea describes their new “Fungal P450 Database”. The database contains sequence, names, and genome links for P450’s (or Cytochrome P450s) identified by similarity and phylogenetic classification from genome annotations. [...]
By Jason Stajich, on April 27th, 2008
A paper in Science from Jason Crawford and colleagues explores the function of polyketide synthetases (PKS) in the synthesis of the secondary metabolite and carcinogen aflatoxin. Previous work (nicely reviewed in the fungi by Nancy Keller and colleagues) has shown the the PKS genes have several domains. These domains include acyl carrier protein (ACP), transacylase (SAT), ketosynthase (KS), malonyl-CoA:ACP transacylase (MAT), “product template” PT, Aand thioesterase/Claisen cyclase (TE/CLC). [...]
By Jason Stajich, on February 8th, 2008
A review in Plant Cell from Darren Soanes and colleagues summarizes some of the major findings about evolution of phytopathogenic fungi gleaned from genome sequencing highlighting 12 fungi and 2 oomycetes. By mapping evolution of genes identified as virulence factors as well as genes that appear to have similar patterns of diversification, we can hope to derive some principals about how phytopathogenic fungi have evolved from saprophyte [...]
By Jason Stajich, on November 14th, 2007
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 [...]
By Jason Stajich, on September 29th, 2007
Ignazio Carbone and colleagues published a recent analysis of the evolution of the aflatoxin gene cluster in five Aspergillus fungi entitled “Gene duplication, modularity and adaptation in the evolution of the aflatoxin gene cluster” in BMC Evolutionary Biology. [...]
By Jason Stajich, on July 4th, 2007
Several more fungi are on the docket for sequencing at JGI through their community sequencing program. This includes
By Jason Stajich, on June 25th, 2007
When first discovered, the gene LaeA was thought to be a master switch for silencing of several NRPS secondary metabolite gene clusters in Aspergillus. NRPS and PKS are important genes in filamentous fungi as they produce many compounds that likely help fungi compete in the ecological niche mycotoxins (e.g. aflatoxin,
