Neurospora crassa is a central organism in the history of twentieth-century genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology. Here, we report a high-quality draft sequence of the N. crassa genome. The approximately 40-megabase genome encodes about 10,000 protein-coding genes-more than twice as many as in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe and only about 25% fewer than in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. Analysis of the gene set yields insights into unexpected aspects of Neurospora biology including the identification of genes potentially associated with red light photobiology, genes implicated in secondary metabolism, and important differences in Ca(2+) signalling as compared with plants and animals. Neurospora possesses the widest array of genome defence mechanisms known for any eukaryotic organism, including a process unique to fungi called repeat-induced point mutation (RIP). Genome analysis suggests that RIP has had a profound impact on genome evolution, greatly slowing the creation of new genes through genomic duplication and resulting in a genome with an unusually low proportion of closely related genes

Magnaporthe grisea is the most destructive pathogen of rice worldwide and the principal model organism for elucidating the molecular basis of fungal disease of plants. Here, we report the draft sequence of the M. grisea genome. Analysis of the gene set provides an insight into the adaptations required by a fungus to cause disease. The genome encodes a large and diverse set of secreted proteins, including those defined by unusual carbohydrate-binding domains. This fungus also possesses an expanded family of G-protein-coupled receptors, several new virulence-associated genes and large suites of enzymes involved in secondary metabolism. Consistent with a role in fungal pathogenesis, the expression of several of these genes is upregulated during the early stages of infection-related development. The M. grisea genome has been subject to invasion and proliferation of active transposable elements, reflecting the clonal nature of this fungus imposed by widespread rice cultivation.Outbreaks of rice blast disease are a serious and recurrent problem in all rice-growing regions of the world, and the disease is extremely difficult to control 1,2 . Rice blast, caused by the fungus Magnaporthe grisea, is therefore a significant economic and humanitarian problem. It is estimated that each year enough rice is destroyed by rice blast disease to feed 60 million people 3 . The life cycle of the rice blast fungus is shown in Fig. 1. Infections occur when fungal spores land and attach themselves to leaves using a special adhesive released from the tip of each spore 4 . The germinating spore develops an appressorium-a specialized infection cell-which generates enormous turgor pressure (up to 8 MPa) that ruptures the leaf cuticle, allowing invasion of the underlying leaf tissue 5,6 . Subsequent colonization of the leaf produces disease lesions from which the fungus sporulates and spreads to new plants. When rice blast infects young rice seedlings, whole plants often die, whereas spread of the disease to the stems, nodes or panicle of older plants results in nearly total loss of the rice grain 2 . Different host-limited forms of M. grisea also infect a broad range of grass species including wheat, barley and millet. Recent reports have shown that the fungus has the capacity to infect plant roots 7 .Here we present our preliminary analysis of the draft genome sequence of M. grisea, which has emerged as a model system for understanding plant-microbe interactions because of both its economic significance and genetic tractability 1,2 . Acquisition of the M. grisea genome sequenceThe genome of a rice pathogenic strain of M. grisea, 70-15, was sequenced through a whole-genome shotgun approach. In all, greater than sevenfold sequence coverage was produced, and a summary of the principal genome sequence data is provided in Table 1 and Supplementary Table S1. The draft genome sequence consists of 2,273 sequence contigs longer than 2 kilobases (kb), ordered and orientated within 159 scaffolds. The total length of all sequence contigs is 38.8 mega...

We present an analysis of over 1,100 of the ∼10,000 predicted proteins encoded by the genome sequence of the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa. Seven major areas of Neurospora genomics and biology are covered. First, the basic features of the genome, including the automated assembly, gene calls, and global gene analyses are summarized. The second section covers components of the centromere and kinetochore complexes, chromatin assembly and modification, and transcription and translation initiation factors. The third area discusses genome defense mechanisms, including repeat induced point mutation, quelling and meiotic silencing, and DNA repair and recombination. In the fourth section, topics relevant to metabolism and transport include extracellular digestion; membrane transporters; aspects of carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and lipid metabolism; the mitochondrion and energy metabolism; the proteasome; and protein glycosylation, secretion, and endocytosis. Environmental sensing is the focus of the fifth section with a treatment of two-component systems; GTP-binding proteins; mitogen-activated protein, p21-activated, and germinal center kinases; calcium signaling; protein phosphatases; photobiology; circadian rhythms; and heat shock and stress responses. The sixth area of analysis is growth and development; it encompasses cell wall synthesis, proteins important for hyphal polarity, cytoskeletal components, the cyclin/cyclin-dependent kinase machinery, macroconidiation, meiosis, and the sexual cycle. The seventh section covers topics relevant to animal and plant pathogenesis and human disease. The results demonstrate that a large proportion of Neurospora genes do not have homologues in the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The group of unshared genes includes potential new targets for antifungals as well as loci implicated in human and plant physiology and disease

Differential cDNA cloning was used to identify genes expressed during infectious growth of the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe grisea in its host, the rice plant. We characterized one of these genes, MPG1, in detail. Using a nove1 assay to determine the proportion of fungal biomass present in the plant, we determined that the MPGl transcript was 60-fold more abundant during growth in the plant than in culture. Mpgl mutants have a reduced ability to cause disease symptoms that appears to result from an impaired ability to undergo appressorium formation. MPGl mRNA was highly abundant very early in plant infection concomitant with appressorium formation and was also abundant at the time of symptom development. The MPGl mRNA was also expressed during conidiation and i n mycelial cultures starved for nitrogen or carbon. MPGl potentially encodes a small, secreted, cysteine-rich, moderately hydrophobic protein with the characteristics of a fungal hydrophobin. Consistent with the role of the MPGl gene product as a hydrophobin, Mpgl mutants show an basily wettable" phenotype. Our results suggest that hydrophobins may have a role in the elaboration of infective structures by fungi and may fulfill other functions in fungal phytopathogenesis.

BackgroundMycoparasitism, a lifestyle where one fungus is parasitic on another fungus, has special relevance when the prey is a plant pathogen, providing a strategy for biological control of pests for plant protection. Probably, the most studied biocontrol agents are species of the genus Hypocrea/Trichoderma.ResultsHere we report an analysis of the genome sequences of the two biocontrol species Trichoderma atroviride (teleomorph Hypocrea atroviridis) and Trichoderma virens (formerly Gliocladium virens, teleomorph Hypocrea virens), and a comparison with Trichoderma reesei (teleomorph Hypocrea jecorina). These three Trichoderma species display a remarkable conservation of gene order (78 to 96%), and a lack of active mobile elements probably due to repeat-induced point mutation. Several gene families are expanded in the two mycoparasitic species relative to T. reesei or other ascomycetes, and are overrepresented in non-syntenic genome regions. A phylogenetic analysis shows that T. reesei and T. virens are derived relative to T. atroviride. The mycoparasitism-specific genes thus arose in a common Trichoderma ancestor but were subsequently lost in T. reesei.ConclusionsThe data offer a better understanding of mycoparasitism, and thus enforce the development of improved biocontrol strains for efficient and environmentally friendly protection of plants.