The Hyphal Tip: Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics

The American Academy of Microbiology has released a report (PDF) on the Fungal Kingdom outlining importance of research in the kingdom and recommending several areas of priority for future areas of research.

We're excited that a Penicillium marneffei grant to Mat Fisher and collaborators has been funded by the Welcome Trust. It includes a collaboration with University College London, our lab, JCVI, and Univ of Melbourne. This project will explore functional and comparative genomics approaches to studying the fungus

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).

The following is an announcement to the B.dendrobatidis and fungal community at large from Alan Kuo at JGI. This is the JAM81 strain (Jess Morgan collected from a frog in the California Sierra Nevada). The JEL423 (Joyce Longcore, collected in Panama) strain genome sequence and annotation is available from the Broad Institute.

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

Few organisms are as well understood at the genetic level as Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Given that there are more yeast geneticists than yeast genes and exemplary resources for the community (largely a result of their size), this comes as no surprise.

A recent paper "Targeted gene deletion in Candida parapsilosis demonstrates the role of secreted lipase in virulence", from the Nosanchuk lab at Yeshiva University, shows the role of secreted lipases in virulence of this pathogen.

I've never worked with Magnaporthe grisea, the fungus responsible for rice blast, one of the most devastating crop diseases, but I do know that its life cycle is complicated and that knocking out roughly 61% of the genes in the genome and evaluating the mutant phenotype to infer gene function is not trivial. In their recent letter to Nature, Jeon et al did what many

A paper by Martin Aslett and Val Wood indicate that the fission yeast community is approaching 100% coverage of a GO annotation for every gene in the S. pombe genome. Only Ashbya gossypii has a smaller genome in the fungi (see a recent paper

In a recent Microbiology Mini-Review, Meriel Jones catalogs both the potential benefits and problems that arise from fungal genome sequencing.