“The surprise we saw is how significantly larger is the variety of enzymes in S. commune that are involved in plant biomass degradation compared to P. chrysosporium,” Grigoriev said. “In fact, S. commune has among the most extensive enzymatic machinery for degrading cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin of the fungi we examined.” Read more in 7th…
Volvox carteri project on Genetics Times
“The fundamental developmental biology interest in studying the Volvocine algae is that a single cell ancestor has evolved multicellularity and complicated cellular processes in a short evolutionary period,” explained DOE JGI bioinformaticist and co-first author Simon Prochnik. What the team found, he said, is “an astonishing lack of innovation” in the Volvox genome when compared…
Volvox carteri project on SciCasts
The DOE said that the organization is currently supporting research into the complex mechanisms present in photosynthetic organisms to better understand how they convert sunlight to energy and how photosynthetic cells control their metabolic processes so that this information can inform the production of renewable biofuels. This research that may inform biofuels research was reported…
Schizophyllum commune project on redOrbit
“When we go into a forest we don’t see layers of dead branches because wood decay fungi take care of them,” said Igor Grigoriev, head of the DOE JGI’s Fungal Genomics Program and a senior author on the study. “So when we think about bioenergy and degrading biomass and converting that into biofuel, we would…
Volvox carteri project on CORDIS Wire
This is due the fact that within the green algal order Chlamydomonadales there are closely related uni- and multicellular species, such as the two-flagellated unicellular model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and its sister taxon Volvox carteri, the latter being made up of more than 2,000 cells and having a much more complex life cycle on top…
Schizophyllum commune project on The Medical News
“When we go into a forest we don’t see layers of dead branches because wood decay fungi take care of them,” said Igor Grigoriev, head of the DOE JGI’s Fungal Genomics Program and a senior author on the study. “So when we think about bioenergy and degrading biomass and converting that into biofuel, we would…
Schizophyllum commune project on PhysOrg
The DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) previously sequenced and published the genomes of two wood-decaying fungi. Now a team of researchers led by scientists from the DOE JGI and the University of Utrecht announce the analysis of a third such genome in a study published online July 11 in Nature Biotechnology. All told, DOE JGI…
Schizophyllum commune project on The Hyphal Tip
I am excited to announce the publication of another mushroom genome this week. The mushroom Schizophyllum commune is an important model system for mushroom biology, development of genome was sequenced as part of efforts at the Joint Genome Institute and a collection of international researchers. The data and analyses from these efforts are presented in a…
Volvox carteri project on Medical News Today
The evolution of multicellularity occurred repeatedly and independently in diverse lineages including animals, plants, fungi, as well as green and red algae. “This transition is one of the great evolutionary events that shaped life on earth,” says co-first author Simon E. Prochnik, Ph.D., a Computationial Scientist at the DOE Joint Genome Institute. “It has generated…
Schizophyllum commune project on EurekAlert
One of the challenges in making cellulosic biofuels commercially viable is to cost-effectively deconstruct plant material to liberate fermentable energy-rich sugars. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is funding several projects focused on identifying enzymes in organisms that optimally degrade cellulosic feedstocks. One such source are fungi, which break down dead wood and leaf litter…