Mushrooms upright, sideways and inside-out

Fungi in Their Own Right

“…I therefore agree with David Moore (Moore, 1998) that at least some principles of morphogenesis discovered in animals and plants must equally apply to fungal development. I also recognize the tremendous value of fungi as model organisms, particularly Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Oliver, 1997) and Neurospora crassa (Perkins, 1992).…”

Life History and Developmental Processes in the BasidiomyceteCoprinus cinereus

“…With the one exception of meiosis within the basidia (86), none of the possible differentiation processes are committed steps (335,338). As first pointed out by Moore and coworkers, this gives the fungus flexibility in expression of developmental subroutines according to the environmental circumstances and the physiological and genetic condition of the fungus (91,(338)(339)(340). Thus, after light induction, we observed production of oidiophores on hyphal knots of an Amut Bmut homokaryon incubated at 37°C (Liu, personal communication) and also on the cap of immature, discarded fruiting bodies in the 12-hdark/12-h-light cycle at 25°C (Kües, unpublished).…”

“…Support for the occurrence of morphogenetic cell death as part of the programmed process of primordia development comes from studies with Agaricus bisporus and other mushrooms. In Agaricus, programmed cell death repeatedly occurs during establishment of the hymenial chamber within the primordia (339,478,479). It has been suggested that this cellular autolysis contributes to the formation of the primary extracellular matrix (ECM) (479).…”

“…Within a given developmental pathway, other, smaller "subroutines" are recognized. For example, in the process of fruiting-body development, among other tissue formations, the formation of hymenia has been observed, and within the shaping of a hymenium, there are the parallel and successive development of basidia, cystidia, and paraphyses (338)(339)(340). Although cystidia are normally sterile cells with a structural function, which have a shape very different from the sexual basidia, they can enter the meiotic cycle, giving another example of a break in a normal developmental program (90,340).…”

“…Fungal morphogenesis is organized in an array of developmental pathways, or subroutines (335), which are genetically and physiologically distinct. These subroutines run in parallel or in sequence, and the order followed determines the final outcome (338)(339)(340). Numerous molecular, genetic and cytological techniques are now available (9, 41, 71, 101, 125, 126, 145, 267a, 283, 343, 366, 386, 388, 390, 391, 430, 446, 508b, 537, 539, 540, 543) to unravel these routes and we are beginning to gain insight into the fascinating regulatory mechanisms of development in C. cinereus.…”