Environmental Microbiology
Environmental Microbiology
5 years ago

Comparative genomics of Mortierella elongata and its bacterial endosymbiont Mycoavidus cysteinexigens

T. Tschaplinski, F. Martin, A. H. Goldstein, K. Hameed, G. Bonito, R. Splivallo, K. Zienkiewicz, E. Tisserant, A. Lipzen, C. Schadt, Z. Du, N. Vande Pol, S. Wu, K. LaButti, A. Zienkiewicz, J. Uehling, G. Tuskan, J. Labbé, E. Morin, R. Vilgalys, M. Hainaut, P. K. Misztal, R. Ohm, A. Desirò, K. Barry, J. Yan, A. Kuo, A. Gryganskyi, M. Nolan, I. Grigoriev, B. Henrissat
Endosymbiosis of bacteria by eukaryotes is a defining feature of cellular evolution. In addition to well-known bacterial origins for mitochondria and chloroplasts, multiple origins of bacterial endosymbiosis are known within the cells of diverse animals, plants and fungi. Early-diverging lineages of terrestrial fungi harbor endosymbiotic bacteria belonging to the Burkholderiaceae. We sequenced the metagenome of the soil-inhabiting fungus Mortierella elongata and assembled the complete circular chromosome of its endosymbiont, Mycoavidus cysteinexigens, which we place within a lineage of endofungal symbionts that are sister clade to Burkholderia. The genome of M. elongata strain AG77 features a core set of primary metabolic pathways for degradation of simple carbohydrates and lipid biosynthesis, while the M. cysteinexigens (AG77) genome is reduced in size and function. Experiments using antibiotics to cure the endobacterium from the host demonstrate that the fungal host metabolism is highly modulated by presence/absence of M. cysteinexigens. Independent comparative phylogenomic analyses of fungal and bacterial genomes are consistent with an ancient origin for M. elongata – M. cysteinexigens symbiosis, most likely over 350 million years ago and concomitant with the terrestrialization of Earth and diversification of land fungi and plants.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.13669

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.