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 [...]
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Coprinus cinereus (renamed Coprinopsis cinerea) growing in the lab. The genome was sequenced, assembled into chromosomes, and annotated and we are working on the final analysis of it to describe some of the interesting biology about this little Coprophilic fungus. I’m excited to put up a few of my pictures of the tiny mushrooms growing in the lab (although others [...] Several more fungi are on the docket for sequencing at JGI through their community sequencing program. This includes
The JGI has released the genome sequence and annotation of the Basidiomycete brown rot Postia placenta. Brown rotters can only break down cellulose but do not degrade lignin that white rotters (like Phanerochaete chrysosporium). Take a guess: what’s the world’s largest organism? No, it’s not Yao Ming. While the Guiness Book of World Records hasn’t weighed in on this issue, scientists out of Oregon State University say that an Armillaria ostoyae individual residing in Oregon’s Blue Mountains is the largest living organism on the planet. Covering 2,200 acres, this tree killing fungus certainly is [...] Lots of papers in Mycologia (subscription required) this month of different groups analyzing the fine-scale relationships of many different fungal clades using the loads of sequences that were generated as part of the Fungal Tree of Life [...] A while back, Jason blogged briefly on a New Scientists article about the rise of a new Puccinia graminis strain, Ug99, that is spreading through West African wheat fields at an enormous rates. It looks like this story is growing in the scientific conciousness, as Science is now running an article on the spread of this wheat [...] The New Scientist has an article about the spread of black stem rust caused by Puccinia graminis. We briefly mentioned the 1st release of a Puccinia genome in January. Some more links about the spread of the Ug99 virulent strain.
Saprophytic fungi degrade organic matter to release carbon, nitrogen, and other elements locked up in complexes. There is interest in better degradation of recalictrant ligin and cellulose plant matter as part of a bioenergy program. Some fungi are able to break down these plant molecules that would otherwise remain behind when left to digestion by bacteria. Many studies have shown the breadth and efficiency of different fungi in [...] |
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