CeBiTec Colloquium (unscheduled)
| date | Wednesday, May 30th 2012, 17 c.t. | |
| location | G2-104, CeBiTec Building | |
| speaker | PD Dr. Kerstin Voigt and Volker SchwartzeJena Microbial Resource Collection (JMRC) | |
| title | Fungi in the Genomics Era: What can we learn from the World’s most ancient, terestrial Fungi? | |
| abstract | The fungal kingdom originated almost 1,000 MYA and represent the sister group of the Metazoa. The basal lineages of the fungi are represented by the Chytriomycota and the Zygomycota. While the Chytridiomycota include predominantly aquatic species the ‘Zygomycotes’ are the most basal terrestrial fungi. Despite their important roles in agriculture, biotechnology and clinical infectionsless is known about the underlying processes compared to the higher fungi (Dikarya). Genome projects represent a valuable base for the investigation of evolution and the identification of genes involved in development and pathogenicity. However, of the more than 100 fungal genomes sequenced so far, only few (~8%) of the species belong to the basal fungal lineages. Due to the decreasing prices of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) more genome projects became achievable including also new genomes of basal fungi. Especially ‘Zygomycetes’ as the most basal terrestrial fungi provide insights into the evolutionary processes necessary to enable the development of the terrestrial lifestyle of fungi. Besides their interesting phylogenetic position several members represent pathogens of plants, fungi, animals and humans. The availability of new genome sequences promotes the identification of infection associated genes and the understanding of pathogenicity mechanisms. | |
| title | Comparative Gene Cluster Analysis in the Mucorales | |
| abstract | The Mucorales represent one of the largest groups of the former ‘Zygomycota’. They possess a wide variety of lifestyles including saprophytes as well as parasites of plants, fungi and humans. Mucoralean genomes differ remarkably in size and structure. Rhizopus oryzae and Phycomyces blakesleeanus possess large genomes of 46 Mb and 54 Mb, respectively. In contrast the genome of Mucor circinelloides is comparably small with only 36 Mb. Surprisingly the phylogenetic relationship seems not to correlate with the genome size of the fungi since M. circinelloides and R. oryzae are closely related groups. Moreover, a whole genome duplication was observed in in R. oryzae. Since mucoralean fungi evolved nearly 900 MYA massive re-arrangements of the genomes may have taken place during the evolution of these fungi. As part of the analysis of the genome project of Lichtheimia corymbifera, one of the oldest mucoralean fungi the mucoralean fungi were surveyed regarding the presence of conserved genomic regions using GECKO. Despite several structural differences in the genomes the presence and structure of conserved regions correlated with the phylogenetic position of the species. In addition, lineage specific duplication events of the conserved regions were observed. | |
| host | Prof. Dr. Jens Stoye |