Insights from a Fungal Symbiont Genome

Plants have successfully colonized terrestrial environment with the help of their fungal friends. Scientists are now exploiting the plant-fungus alliance to come up with plants that sequester more carbon dioxide and produce more biomass for the next generation biofuels. The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), in collaboration with several international research institutions, sequenced the genome of the plant symbiotic fungus Laccaria bicolor to gain insights on how the fungus helps plants generate large amounts of stored carbon.

Analysis of Laccaria’s 65 million-base-genome, the largest fungal genome sequenced to date, yielded protein encoding genes as many as that of the human genome. The scientists discovered new sets of genes that might play roles in the complex plant-fungus communication. The team also discovered that the fungus plays a critical role in plant nutrient use efficiency by translocating water and nutrients captured in soil pores inaccessible to the roots of the plant host.

Lead author Francis Martin pointed out that the Laccaria genome sequence, and its associated genomics and bioinformatics tools, can provide opportunities to identify the key components of organism-environment interactions that modulate ecosystem responses to global change and increased nutrient input needed for faster growth.

For more information visit http://www.jgi.doe.gov/News/news_3_5_08.html The abstract of the paper published by Nature is available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7183/abs/nature06556.html