Work

Metabolism and Development during Conidial Germination in Response to a Carbon-Nitrogen-Rich Synthetic or a Natural Source of Nutrition in Neurospora crassa

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: One of the most remarkable successes of life is its ability to flourish in response to temporally and spatially varying environments. Fungi occupy diverse ecosystems, and their sensitivity to these environmental changes often drives major fungal life history decisions, including the major switch from vegetative growth to asexual or sexual reproduction. Spore germination comprises the first and simplest stage of vegetative growth. We examined the dependence of this early life history on the nutritional environment using genome-wide transcriptomics. We demonstrated that for developmental regulatory genes, expression was generally conserved across nutritional environments, whereas metabolic gene expression was highly labile. The level of activation of developmental genes did depend on current nutrient conditions, as did the modularity of metabolic and developmental response network interactions. This knowledge is critical to the development of future technologies that could manipulate fungal growth for medical, agricultural, or industrial purposes.

Source: mBio

DOI: 10.1128/mbio.00192-19

Authors: Zheng Wang, Cristina Miguel-Rojas, Francesc Lopez-Giraldez, Oded Yarden, Frances Trail, Jeffrey P. Townsend

Institutions: Yale University, Michigan State University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Language: English

Topic: Fungal and yeast genetics research

Subfield: Molecular Biology

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Zero hunger

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,900