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Date

2013-02-28

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Journal ISSN

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PLos Genetics
Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 3.0 United States

Author Summary The fungal family, Clavicipitaceae, includes “ergot” fungi that parasitize ears of cereals and have historically caused mass poisonings, as well as “epichloae,” which are symbionts of grasses. Many epichloae are mutualistic symbionts, but some are pathogenic, and others have both mutualistic and pathogenic characteristics. Most Clavicipitaceae produce “alkaloids,” small molecules that deter insects, livestock, and wildlife from feeding on the fungus or plant. Epichloae protect their hosts with diverse alkaloids belonging to four chemical classes. After sequencing the entire DNA contents (“genomes”) of ten epichloae, three ergot fungi, and two relatives, we compared their “clusters” of genes for alkaloid biosynthesis. In the epichloae, these clusters contained extraordinarily large blocks of highly repetitive DNA, which promote gene losses, mutations, and even the evolution of new genes. These repeat blocks account for the exceptionally high alkaloid diversity in the epichloae and may relate to the ecological diversity of these symbiotic fungi.

Description

We thank Richard M. Higashi and Teresa W. M. Fan of the University of Louisville Center for Regulatory and Environmental Analytical Metabolomics (supported by NSF EPSCoR grant EPS-0447479), together with Jerome R. Faulkner, University of Kentucky, and for identification of 1-acetamidopyrrolizidine; Abbe Kesterson and Alfred D. Byrd of the University of Kentucky Advanced Genetic Technologies Center for assistance in DNA sequencing; and John May of the University of Kentucky Environmental Research Training Laboratories for assistance in loline alkaloid analysis. This is publication number 13-12-004 of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, published with approval of the director.

Keywords

Alkaloids,Genetic loci,Fungal genomics,Plant genomics,Telomeres,Sequence assembly tools,Fungi,Repeated sequences

Citation

Schardl CL, Young CA, Hesse U, Amyotte SG, Andreeva K, Calie PJ, et al. (2013) Plant-Symbiotic Fungi as Chemical Engineers: Multi-Genome Analysis of the Clavicipitaceae Reveals Dynamics of Alkaloid Loci. PLoS Genet 9(2): e1003323. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003323

Related file

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1003323

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