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Diversity of A mating type in Lentinula edodes has been assessed by analysis of A mating loci in 127 strains collected from East Asia. It was discovered that hypervariable sequence region with an approximate length of 1 kb in the A mating locus, spanning 5' region of HD2-intergenic region-5' region of HD1, could represent individual A mating type as evidenced by comprehensive mating analysis. The sequence analysis revealed 27 A mating type alleles from 96 cultivated strains and 48 alleles from 31 wild strains. Twelve of them commonly appeared, leaving 63 unique A mating type alleles. It was also revealed that only A few A mating type alleles such as A1, A4, A5, and A7 were prevalent in the cultivated strains, accounting for 62.5% of all A mating types. This implies preferred selection of certain A mating types in the process of strain development and suggests potential role of A mating genes in the expression of genes governing mushroom quality. Dominant expression of an A mating gene HD1 was observed from A1 mating locus, the most prevalent A allele, in A1-containing dikaryons. However, connections between HD1 expression and A1 preference in the cultivated strains remain to be verified. The A mating type was highly diverse in the wild strains. Thirty-six unique A alleles were discovered from relatively small and confined area of mountainous region in Korean peninsula. The number will further increase because no A allele has been recurrently observed in the wild strains and thus newly discovered strain will have good chances to contain new A allele. The high diversity in small area also suggests that the A mating locus has evolved rapidly and thus its diversity will further increase.

In this study, transcriptome analysis of twelve laccase genes in Pleurotus ostreatus revealed that their expression was differentially regulated at different developmental stages. Lacc5 and Lacc12 were specifically expressed in fruiting bodies and primordia, respectively, whereas Lacc6 was expressed at all developmental stages. Lacc1 and Lacc3 were specific to the mycelial stage in solid medium. In order to investigate their biochemical characteristics, these laccases were heterologously expressed in Pichia pastoris using the pPICHOLI-2 expression vector. Expression of the laccases was facilitated by intermittent addition of methanol as an inducer and sole carbon source, in order to reduce the toxic effects associated with high methanol concentration. The highest expression was observed when the recombinant yeast cells were grown for 5 days at 15℃ with intermittent addition of 1% methanol at a 12-hr interval. Investigation of enzyme kinetics using 2,2-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) as a substrate revealed that the primordium-specific laccase Lacc12 was 5.4-fold less active than Lacc6 at low substrate concentration with respect to ABTS oxidation activity. The optimal pH and temperature of Lacc12 were 0.5 pH units and 5℃ higher than those of Lacc6. Lacc12 showed maximal activity at pH 3.5 and 50℃, which may reflect the physiological conditions at the primordiation stage.

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Mushroom transformation requires a series of experimental steps, including generation of host strains with a desirable selective marker, design of vector DNA, removal of host cell wall, introduction of foreign DNA across the cell membrane, and integration into host genomic DNA or maintenance of an autonomous vector DNA inside the host cell. This review introduces limitations and obstacles related to transformation technologies along with possible solutions. Current methods for cell wall removal and cell membrane permeabilization are summarized together with details of two popular technologies, Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation and restriction enzyme-mediated integration.