By Jason Stajich, on July 17th, 2008
Just noticed that the [[JGI]] has released the Cochliobolus heterostrophus genome sequence at their site predicting 9,633 protein-coding genes. Torrey Mesa Research Institute had access to a sequence many years ago, but it isn’t until now that public version of this genome is available. Cochliobolus is has been a model plant pathogen system and its production of T-Toxin by a PKS gene (Yang et al) [...]
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 ancestors.
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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. [...]
