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An article, published in the revistaCurrent Biology, provides insights into the evolution of sensory perception of two fungi, information that could be key to explaining the process by which these organisms change their growth patterns and act as pathogens.
For this work, has been used as a base sequencing and annotation of fungi Phycomyces blakleeanusy Mucor circinelloides, projects led by researchers Luis Corrochano, of the University of Seville and Santiago Torres, University of Murcia (UMU), respectively.
The study results, which with Professor Torres researchers Victoriano Garre, Rosa Ruiz, Fatima Silva and Sergio Lopez, the group of "Genomics and Molecular Biotechnology of Fungi" UMU, involved show that these organisms have suffered a doubling of the genome throughout evolution.
"This, uncommon in fungi, has led to the expansion and development of gene families that have specialized in very specific functions, and as a result has created new proteins that have allowed these fungi improve the ways in which perceive environmental signals that regulate growth and development, "explains Santiago Torres.
Thus, knowledge of the mechanisms by which environmental signals are perceived could help understand how some fungi change their growth patterns to act as pathogens rather than as benign organisms.
Specifically, this work has shown that exposure to light of the sequenced fungi produces massive changes in gene regulation in vegetative apparatus.
Torres said that "this sophisticated response fungi to light, known for a long time, is a consequence of this overall process of gene duplication and subsequent specialization of some of these genes resulting from duplication".
Thanks to these results could be understood the role of genome dynamics in the evolution of the perception of the senses and clarified important processes, such as the ability of these fungi to adapt to changes in the environment and to produce bioenergy from biomass, to know when and how to infect a plant or animal.
In this regard, it is of special interest the pathogenic potential of some species of human géneroMucoren, with which they have worked extensively researchers in the field of Genetics at the University of Murcia.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Joint Genome Institute, the United States Department of Energy, in collaboration with scientists from 31 research centers and universities in 13 countries.
Source: Universidad de Murcia
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