Functional genomics in Schizophyllum commune: leveraging the diversity in this hypervariable fungus to understand mushroom development

Informazioni relative al progetto

Mushroomics

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 716132

DOI

10.3030/716132

Progetto chiuso

Data della firma CE 29 Novembre 2016

Data di avvio 1 Gennaio 2017

Data di completamento 31 Dicembre 2022

Finanziato da

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Costo totale

€ 1 500 000,00

Contributo UE

€ 1 500 000,00

Coordinato da

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - Mushroomics (Functional genomics in Schizophyllum commune: leveraging the diversity in this hypervariable fungus to understand mushroom development)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-07-01 al 2022-12-31

Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto

Mushrooms are the reproductive structures of certain species of fungi, and they are a nutritious and sustainable food source for a growing world population. At the beginning of the project, very little was known about how mushrooms form. Therefore, the aim of this project was to gain more insight in the regulation of mushroom development: how does the fungus decide where to form a mushroom, and which genes are involved in this process?
Having concluded the project, we now understand mushroom development much better. We identified over 15 important regulators of mushroom development. Moreover, we have developed several techniques that will accelerate the study of mushrooms in the future.

Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti

Most mushroom-forming fungi are very difficult to work with in the lab, since they grow very slowly or because they are not genetically accessible. For this reason we use a model species for mushroom development, called Schizophyllum commune. In the course of the project, we developed several new methods to efficiently study the genes of mushrooms. This includes a CRISPR/Cas9 method to edit the genome of mushrooms, as well as an approach to study the structure and regulation of the genome.
Using these techniques, we have now identified over 15 regulators of mushroom development. We now better understand how fungi detect environmental signals, and how they process this information, allowing them to decide where to form a mushroom. Furthermore, we discovered that individual strains of a species of mushrooms can be genetically very diverse, which is an important new insight into the evolution of these mushroom-forming fungi.
In conclusion, we now understand mushroom development much better. Next, our results may be used to improve the efficiency of mushroom cultivation, and may also allow us to commercially grow species that are currently unculturable.

Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)

Having concluded the project, we now understand mushroom development much better. We identified over 15 important regulators of mushroom development. Moreover, we have developed several techniques that will accelerate the study of mushrooms in the future.

The mushroom-forming fungus Schizophyllum commune, which we use to study mushroom development