Comparative genomics of early diverging terrestrial fungi and their bacterial endosymbionts

Screen Shot 2013-11-20 at 11.50.43 AMThe Joint Genome Institute recently approved funding for a Community Sequencing Project to sequence the genomes of fungi and their endosymbiotic bacteria.  Recently, several lineages of bacteria were discovered living within the mycelium of early diverging terrestrial plant-associated fungi including the Glomeromycota, Mortierellomycotina, and Mucormycotina.  The endocellular bacteria appear within the fungal mycelium as obligate and in some cases facultative endobacteria. Genomic analyses indicate that these bacteria have reduced genome sizes compared to free-living relatives, and that these ancient fungal endosymbionts can influence fungal reproduction and metabolism.    The bacterial lineages residing within  the hyphae of these fungal lineages include Mollicutes (gram-positive bacteria in the Firmicutes), Stenotrophomonas (gram-negative gamma-proteobacteria), Burkholderia (gram-negative beta-proteobacteria) and Brevundimonas (gram-negative alpha-proteobacteria)

The new CSP will support genome sequencing  of early diverging plant-associated fungi and their endosymbiotic bacteria, and will provide new insights into plant microbiomes and will allow for a novel comparative genomic and evolutionary perspective on fungal-bacterial symbioses. Our focus is on fungi that are ubiquitous in terrestrial soils and plant-dominated ecosystems.

The CSP is led by Greg Bonito from Duke, and includes an international cast of collaborators including Paula Bonfante, Stefano Ghignone, Alessandro Desiro, Alessandra Salvioli (Turin Univeresity, Italy), Christopher Schadt, Jesse Labbe, Dale Pelletier, Gerald Tuskan, Tim Tschaplinski, Steven Brown, David Weston (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Amy Schaefer (University of Washington), Teresa Pawlowska, Stephan Mondo (Cornell University), Francis Martin (INRA-France).

 

 

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