Morels (Morchella, Ascomycota), which are some of the most highly prized edible and medicinal mushrooms, are of great economic and scientific value. Morel cultivation has been a research focus worldwide for more than 100 years, and the outdoor cultivation of morels has succeeded and expanded to a large scale in China in recent years. In this study, we review the progress in recent research regarding the life cycle and reproductive systems in the genus Morchella and the current state of outdoor cultivation. Sclerotia formation and conidia production are two important phases during the life cycle. The morel species cultivated commercially in America is M. rufobrunnea based on molecular phylogenetic analysis. The species currently cultivated in China are black morels, including M. importuna, M. sextalata and M. eximia. The field cultivation of morels expanded in the majority of the provinces in China with a yield of fresh morels of 0-7620 kg per ha. The key techniques include spawn production, land preparation and spawning, the addition of exogenous nutrition, fruiting management and harvesting. The application of exogenous nutrition is the most important breakthrough in the field of morel cultivation, but the mechanism remains unclear. It was estimated that the total amount of field cultivated fresh morels was ∼500 t in 2015-2016. We also discuss the potential issues remaining in the current literature and suggest directions for future studies.

Light is an essential factor for pigment formation and fruit body development in Cordyceps militaris, a well-known edible and medicinal fungus. Cmwc-1, a homolog of the blue-light receptor gene white collar-1 (wc-1) in Neurospora crassa, was cloned from the C. militaris genome in our previous study. Here, Cmwc-1 gene inactivation results in thicker aerial hyphae, disordered fruit body development, a significant reduction in conidial formation, and carotenoid and cordycepin production. These characteristics were restored when the ΔCmwc-1 strains were hybridized with wild-type strains of the opposite mating type. A genome-wide expression analysis revealed that there were 1042 light-responsive genes in the wild-type strain and only 458 in the ΔCmwc-1 strain. Among five putative photoreceptors identified, Vivid, cryptochrome-1, and cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer photolyase are strongly induced by light in a Cmwc-1-dependent manner, while phytochrome and cryptochrome-2 were not induced. The transcription factors involved in the fungal light reaction were mainly of the Zn2Cys6 type. CmWC-1 regulates adenylosuccinate synthase, an important enzyme for adenosine de novo synthesis, which could explain the reduction in cordycepin production. Some G protein-coupled receptors that control fungal fruit body formation and the sexual cycle were regulated by CmWC-1, and the cAMP pathway involved in light signal transduction in N. crassa was not critical for the photoreaction in the fungus here. A transcriptional analysis indicated that steroid biosynthesis was more active in the ΔCmwc-1 strain, suggesting that CmWC-1 might switch the vegetative growth state to primordia differentiation by suppressing the expression of related genes.

Novel selective histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) inhibitors using the quinazoline as the cap were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for HDAC enzymatic assays. N-Hydroxy-4-(2-methoxy-5-(methyl(2-methylquinazolin-4-yl)amino)phenoxy)butanamide, 23bb, was the most potent selective inhibitor for HDAC6 with an IC50 of 17 nM and showed 25-fold and 200-fold selectivity relative to HDAC1 and HDAC8, respectively. In vitro, 23bb presented low nanomolar antiproliferative effects against panel of cancer cell lines. Western blot analysis further confirmed that 23bb increased acetylation level of α-tubulin in vitro. 23bb has a good pharmacokinetic profile with oral bioavailability of 47.0% in rats. In in vivo efficacy evaluations of colorectal HCT116, acute myelocytic leukemia MV4-11, and B cell lymphoma Romas xenografts, 23bb more effectively inhibited the tumor growth than SAHA even at a 4-fold reduced dose or ACY-1215 at the same dose. Our results indicated that 23bb is a potent oral anticancer candidate for selective HDAC6 inhibitor and deserves further investigation.