The Hyphal Tip: Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics

The transcriptional landscape of yeast has been (further) defined with [[Solexa]] sequencing in a method deemed "RNA-Seq", but what I would call "deep EST sequencing".  This approach for transcriptional profiling by sequencing alone is sure to be used by many labs looking for lower and more complete ways to describe and quantitate the full population of transcripts in an organism.

• Genetics and Cell Biology of Basidiomycetes, May 28-June 1, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO. Registration deadline April 25.
• North American Pombe Meeting, June 6-8, Los Angeles, CA. Registration deadline May 14.
• Cellular & Molecular Fungal Biology Gordon Conference, June 29-July 4, The Holderness School, Holderness, NH. Registration deadline June 8 (if it doesn't fill up sooner).
• Yeast Genetics and Molecular

We may have to reevaluate whether Saccharomyces cerevisiae alone is the species used to brew beer.  A paper from Gonzalez et al describes results from PCR-RFLP comparison of 24 brewing strains identifies evidence for S. cerevisiae x S. kudriavzevii hybrids.  Although this hybridization is not unprecedented, most seem to be related to cultivated brewing or fermentation

Researchers from Technical University of Denmark published some interesting results from comparing expression across the very distinct Aspergillus species.

Kudos also goes to making it Open Access. I am posting a few key figures below the fold because I can! They grew the fungi in bioreactors fermenting glucose or xylose. After calibrating the growth curves they were able to sample the appropriate time points for comparison of gene expression across these three species. They found a set of genes commonly expressed.

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