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Polish Journal of Microbiology Jun 2024This study aimed to elucidate the influence of various culture medium components, including carbon sources, nitrogen sources, inorganic salts, suspension agents, and...
This study aimed to elucidate the influence of various culture medium components, including carbon sources, nitrogen sources, inorganic salts, suspension agents, and temperature, on the mycelial growth characteristics of . Employing single-factor experiments and response surface methodology within glass Petri dishes, the research identified that carrot powder, soybean powder, and ZnSO notably enhanced the proliferation of aerial mycelium, significantly augmenting the growth rate of mycelium. The resultant mycelium was observed to be dense, robust, and fluffy in texture. In particular, ZnSO markedly accelerated the mycelium growth rate. Furthermore, xanthan gum was found to effectively modulate the medium's viscosity, ensuring a stable suspension and facilitating nutrient equilibrium. The optimal cultivation temperature was determined to be 25°C, with mycelial growth ceasing below 5°C and mycelium perishing at temperatures exceeding 35°C. The optimal medium composition was established as follows: wheat starch 5 g/l, carrot powder 5 g/l, soybean powder 7.50 g/l, glucose 10 g/l, ZnSO 0.71 g/l, NHCl 0.68 g/l, xanthan gum 0.5 g/l, and agar 20 g/l. Under these optimized conditions, the mycelium of exhibited a rapid growth rate (1.04 ± 0.14 mm/day), characterized by a thick, dense, and well-developed structure. This investigation provides a theoretical foundation for the conservation, strain selection, and breeding of .
Topics: Mycelium; Culture Media; Temperature; Nitrogen; Carbon; Polysaccharides, Bacterial
PubMed: 38905279
DOI: 10.33073/pjm-2024-022 -
Scientific Reports Dec 2018Mycelium and mycelium-biomass composites are emerging as new sustainable materials with useful flame-retardant potentials. Here we report a detailed characterisation of...
Mycelium and mycelium-biomass composites are emerging as new sustainable materials with useful flame-retardant potentials. Here we report a detailed characterisation of the thermal degradation and fire properties of fungal mycelium and mycelium-biomass composites. Measurements and analyses are carried out on key parameters such as decomposition temperatures, residual char, and gases evolved during pyrolysis. Pyrolysis flow combustion calorimetry (PCFC) evaluations reveal that the corresponding combustion propensity of mycelium is significantly lower compared to poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and polylactic acid (PLA), indicating that they are noticeably less prone to ignition and flaming combustion, and therefore safer to use. The hyphal diameters of mycelium decrease following pyrolysis. Cone calorimetry testing results show that the presence of mycelium has a positive influence on the fire reaction properties of wheat grains. This improvement is attributable to the relatively higher charring tendency of mycelium compared to wheat grain, which reduces the heat release rate (HRR) by acting as a thermal insulator and by limiting the supply of combustible gases to the flame front. The mycelium growth time has been found to yield no significant improvements in the fire properties of mycelium-wheat grain composites.
Topics: Calorimetry; Fires; Flame Retardants; Gases; Mycelium; Polyesters; Polymethyl Methacrylate; Pyrolysis; Temperature; Tinea Versicolor; Triticum; Whole Grains
PubMed: 30514955
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-36032-9 -
Cells Sep 2022Flavonoids are chemical compounds that occur widely across the plant kingdom. They are considered valuable food additives with pro-health properties, and their sources... (Review)
Review
Flavonoids are chemical compounds that occur widely across the plant kingdom. They are considered valuable food additives with pro-health properties, and their sources have also been identified in other kingdoms. Especially interesting is the ability of edible mushrooms to synthesize flavonoids. Mushrooms are usually defined as a group of fungal species capable of producing macroscopic fruiting bodies, and there are many articles considering the content of flavonoids in this group of fungi. Whereas the synthesis of flavonoids was revealed in mycelial cells, the ability of mushroom fruiting bodies to produce flavonoids does not seem to be clearly resolved. This article, as an overview of the latest key scientific findings on flavonoids in mushrooms, outlines and organizes the current state of knowledge on the ability of mushroom fruiting bodies to synthesize this important group of compounds for vital processes. Putting the puzzle of the current state of knowledge on flavonoid biosynthesis in mushroom cells together, we propose a universal scheme of studies to unambiguously decide whether the fruiting bodies of individual mushrooms are capable of synthesizing flavonoids.
Topics: Agaricales; Flavonoids; Food Additives; Fruiting Bodies, Fungal; Mycelium
PubMed: 36231014
DOI: 10.3390/cells11193052 -
Genes Jun 2022uses straw as a growth substrate during artificial cultivation and has been widely promoted in China. However, its fruiting body formation and development processes...
uses straw as a growth substrate during artificial cultivation and has been widely promoted in China. However, its fruiting body formation and development processes have not been elucidated. In this study, the developmental transcriptomes were analyzed at three stages: the mycelium (G-S), primordium (P-S) and fruiting body (M-F) stages. A total of 9690 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the different developmental stages. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses showed that these DEGs were involved mainly in hydrolase activity, structural molecule activity and oxidoreductase activity as well as xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism and energy metabolism pathways. We further found that the higher expression of most carbohydrate enzyme (i.e., GH, CE, CBM, AA and PL) genes in the hyphal (i.e., G-S) stage was related mainly to substrate degradation, while the upregulation of glycosyltransferase (GT) gene expression in the P-S and M-F stages may be related to cell wall synthesis. In addition, we found that CO-sensing-related genes (i.e., , , and ) were upregulated in the P-S and M-F stages, heat shock protein genes ( and ) were significantly downregulated in the P-S stage and upregulated in the M-F stage and the transcription factors (i.e., , , , , and ) involved in growth and development were significantly upregulated in the P-S stage. These results suggest that environmental factors (i.e., CO and temperature) and transcription factors may play a key role in primordium formation. In short, this study provides new insights into the study of stimulating primordia formation affecting the development of fruiting bodies of
Topics: Agaricales; Carbon Dioxide; Fruiting Bodies, Fungal; Mycelium; Transcription Factors; Transcriptome
PubMed: 35741841
DOI: 10.3390/genes13061080 -
International Journal of Molecular... Jun 2017Lectins are proteins of a nonimmunoglobulin nature that are capable of specific recognition of and reversible binding to the carbohydrate moieties of complex... (Review)
Review
Lectins are proteins of a nonimmunoglobulin nature that are capable of specific recognition of and reversible binding to the carbohydrate moieties of complex carbohydrates, without altering the covalent structure of any of the recognized glycosyl ligands. They have a broad range of biological activities important for the functioning of the cell and the whole organism and, owing to the high specificity of reversible binding to carbohydrates, are valuable tools used widely in biology and medicine. Lectins can be produced by many living organisms, including basidiomycetes. Whereas lectins from the fruit bodies of basidiomycetes have been studied sufficiently well, mycelial lectins remain relatively unexplored. Here, we review and comparatively analyze what is currently known about lectins isolated from the vegetative mycelium of macrobasidiomycetes, including their localization, properties, and carbohydrate specificities. Particular attention is given to the physiological role of mycelial lectins in fungal growth and development.
Topics: Basidiomycota; Fungal Proteins; Lectins; Mycelium
PubMed: 28640205
DOI: 10.3390/ijms18071334 -
ELife Jul 2019Mutualistic interactions between free-living algae and fungi are widespread in nature and are hypothesized to have facilitated the evolution of land plants and lichens....
Mutualistic interactions between free-living algae and fungi are widespread in nature and are hypothesized to have facilitated the evolution of land plants and lichens. In all known algal-fungal mutualisms, including lichens, algal cells remain external to fungal cells. Here, we report on an algal-fungal interaction in which algal cells become internalized within the hyphae of the fungus . This apparent symbiosis begins with close physical contact and nutrient exchange, including carbon and nitrogen transfer between fungal and algal cells as demonstrated by isotope tracer experiments. This mutualism appears to be stable, as both partners remain physiologically active over months of co-cultivation, leading to the eventual internalization of photosynthetic algal cells, which persist to function, grow and divide within fungal hyphae. and are biotechnologically important species for lipids and biofuel production, with available genomes and molecular tool kits. Based on the current observations, they provide unique opportunities for studying fungal-algal mutualisms including mechanisms leading to endosymbiosis.
Topics: Biofuels; Endocytosis; Lipid Metabolism; Mortierella; Mycelium; Photosynthesis; Stramenopiles; Symbiosis
PubMed: 31307571
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.47815 -
Current Biology : CB Jan 2021Multicellular organisms employ fluid transport networks to overcome the limit of diffusion and promote essential long-distance transport. Connectivity and pressurization...
Multicellular organisms employ fluid transport networks to overcome the limit of diffusion and promote essential long-distance transport. Connectivity and pressurization render these networks especially vulnerable to wounding. To mitigate this risk, animals, plants, and multicellular fungi independently evolved elaborate clotting and plugging mechanisms. In the septate filamentous fungi, membrane-bound organelles plug septal pores in wounded hyphae. By contrast, vegetative hyphae in the early-diverging Mucoromycota are largely aseptate, and how their hyphae respond to wounding is unknown. Here, we show that wounding in the Mucorales leads to explosive protoplasmic discharge that is rapidly terminated by protoplasmic gelation. We identify Mucoromycota-specific Gellin proteins, whose loss of function leads to uncontrolled wound-induced protoplasmic bleeding. Gellins contain ten related β-trefoil Gll domains, each of which possesses unique features that impart distinct gelation-related properties: some readily unfold and form high-order sheet-like structures when subjected to mechanical force from flow, while others possess hydrophobic motifs that enable membrane binding. In cell-free reconstitution, sheet-like structures formed by a partial Gellin incorporate membranous organelles. Together, these data define a mechanistic basis for regulated protoplasmic gelation, and provide new design principles for the development of artificial flow-responsive biomaterials.
Topics: Cytoplasm; Fungal Proteins; Hydrodynamics; Hyphae; Intravital Microscopy; Loss of Function Mutation; Mucor; Protein Domains; Protein Multimerization
PubMed: 33186551
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.016 -
Communications Biology Apr 2022The chemical quality of soil carbon (C) inputs is a major factor controlling litter decomposition and soil C dynamics. Mycorrhizal fungi constitute one of the dominant...
The chemical quality of soil carbon (C) inputs is a major factor controlling litter decomposition and soil C dynamics. Mycorrhizal fungi constitute one of the dominant pools of soil microbial C, while their litter quality (chemical proxies of litter decomposability) is understood poorly, leading to major uncertainties in estimating soil C dynamics. We examined litter decomposability of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungal species using samples obtained from in vitro cultivation. We showed that the chemical composition of AM and EM fungal mycelium differs significantly: EM fungi have higher concentrations of labile (water-soluble, ethanol-soluble) and recalcitrant (non-extractable) chemical components, while AM fungi have higher concentrations of acid-hydrolysable components. Our results imply that differences in decomposability traits among mycorrhizal fungal guilds represent a critically important driver of the soil C cycle, which could be as vital as is recognized for differences among aboveground plant litter.
Topics: Carbon; Mycelium; Mycorrhizae; Plants; Soil
PubMed: 35484190
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03341-9 -
Communications Biology Mar 2022The direct delivery of molecules and the sampling of endogenous compounds into and from living cells provide powerful means to modulate and study cellular functions....
The direct delivery of molecules and the sampling of endogenous compounds into and from living cells provide powerful means to modulate and study cellular functions. Intracellular injection and extraction remain challenging for fungal cells that possess a cell wall. The most common methods for intracellular delivery into fungi rely on the initial degradation of the cell wall to generate protoplasts, a step that represents a major bottleneck in terms of time, efficiency, standardization, and cell viability. Here, we show that fluidic force microscopy enables the injection of solutions and cytoplasmic fluid extraction into and out of individual fungal cells, including unicellular model yeasts and multicellular filamentous fungi. The approach is strain- and cargo-independent and opens new opportunities for manipulating and analyzing fungi. We also perturb individual hyphal compartments within intact mycelial networks to study the cellular response at the single cell level.
Topics: Cell Wall; Fungi; Hyphae; Mycelium; Yeasts
PubMed: 35233064
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03127-z -
Communications Biology May 2021Streptomyces are one of the most important industrial microorganisms for the production of proteins and small-molecule drugs. Previously reported flow cytometry-based...
Streptomyces are one of the most important industrial microorganisms for the production of proteins and small-molecule drugs. Previously reported flow cytometry-based screening methods can only screen spores or protoplasts released from mycelium, which do not represent the filamentous stationary phase Streptomyces used in industrial cultivation. Here we show a droplet-based microfluidic platform to facilitate more relevant, reliable and rapid screening of Streptomyces mycelium, and achieved an enrichment ratio of up to 334.2. Using this platform, we rapidly characterized a series of native and heterologous constitutive promoters in Streptomyces lividans 66 in droplets, and efficiently screened out a set of engineered promoter variants with desired strengths from two synthetic promoter libraries. We also successfully screened out several hyperproducers of cellulases from a random S. lividans 66 mutant library, which had 69.2-111.4% greater cellulase production than the wild type. Our method provides a fast, simple, and powerful solution for the industrial engineering and screening of Streptomyces in more industry-relevant conditions.
Topics: High-Throughput Screening Assays; Metabolic Engineering; Microfluidics; Mycelium; Promoter Regions, Genetic; Streptomyces; Streptomyces lividans
PubMed: 34059751
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-021-02186-y