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Bio Systems Jun 2020A fungal colony maintains its integrity via flow of cytoplasm along mycelium network. This flow, together with possible coordination of mycelium tips propagation, is...
A fungal colony maintains its integrity via flow of cytoplasm along mycelium network. This flow, together with possible coordination of mycelium tips propagation, is controlled by calcium waves and associated waves of electrical potential changes. We propose that these excitation waves can be employed to implement a computation in the mycelium networks. We use FitzHugh-Nagumo model to imitate propagation of excitation in a single colony of Aspergillus niger. Boolean values are encoded by spikes of extracellular potential. We represent binary inputs by electrical impulses on a pair of selected electrodes and we record responses of the colony from sixteen electrodes. We derive sets of two-inputs-on-output logical gates implementable the fungal colony and analyse distributions of the gates.
Topics: Aspergillus niger; Colony Count, Microbial; Computer Simulation; Cytoplasm; Gene Regulatory Networks; Mycelium
PubMed: 32259561
DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2020.104138 -
Fungal Biology Feb 2020Heterobasidion viruses have previously been shown to affect each other's transmission and phenotypic effects on their hosts in a complex way. In this work,...
Heterobasidion viruses have previously been shown to affect each other's transmission and phenotypic effects on their hosts in a complex way. In this work, Heterobasidion parviporum strains hosting five coinfecting viruses simultaneously were constructed and used as donors in transmission experiments. They showed that viruses move more frequently between the mycelia of the same species than between the mycelia of H. parviporum and Heterobasidionannosum. One of the strains was used to show that coinfection of five viruses is relatively unstable in a natural environment and analyses of the growth rate and competitive ability of Heterobasidion strains hosting various virus combinations revealed that viral effects are not additive. The results also supported the view that the transmission of the promising virocontrol agent HetPV13-an1 may be enhanced by coinfecting viruses in the donor mycelium. However, its detrimental effects may be blocked by the presence of other viruses in the same mycelium. REPOSITORIES: GenBank accession number MN058080.
Topics: Basidiomycota; Coinfection; Fungal Viruses; Mycelium; Phylogeny; Plant Diseases; RNA Viruses; RNA, Viral; Tracheophyta; Virus Diseases
PubMed: 32008751
DOI: 10.1016/j.funbio.2019.12.004 -
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 -
Journal of Applied Microbiology Jan 2023The cultivated edible mushrooms Agaricus bisporus and Pleurotus ostreatus are valuable food crops and an important source of human nutrition. Agaricus bisporus is the... (Review)
Review
The cultivated edible mushrooms Agaricus bisporus and Pleurotus ostreatus are valuable food crops and an important source of human nutrition. Agaricus bisporus is the dominant cultivated species in the western hemisphere and in Australia, while in Asian countries P. ostreatus is more prevalent. These two mushroom species are grown on fermented-pasteurized substrates, and bacteria and fungi play an important role in converting feedstocks into a selective medium for the mushroom mycelium. The mushrooms are usually introduced to the substrate as grain spawn, and the actively growing hyphae form a range of direct interactions with the diverse bacterial community in the substrate. Of these interactions, the most well studied is the removal of inhibitory volatile C8 compounds and ethylene by pseudomonads, which promotes mycelium growth and stimulates primordia formation of both A. bisporus and P. ostreatus. Bacterial biomass in the substrate is a significant nutrition source for the A. bisporus mycelium, both directly through bacteriolytic enzymes produced by A. bisporus, and indirectly through the action of extracellular bacterial enzymes, but this is less well studied for P. ostreatus. Apart from their role as a food source for the growing mycelium, bacteria also form extensive interactions with the mycelium of A. bisporus and P. ostreatus, by means other than those of the removal of inhibitory compounds. Although several of these interactions have been observed to promote mycelial growth, the proposed mechanisms of growth promotion by specific bacterial strains remain largely uncertain, and at times conflicting. Bacterial interactions also elicit varying growth-inhibitory responses from A. bisporus and P. ostreatus. This review explores characterized interactions involving bacteria and A. bisporus, and to a lesser degree P.ostreatus, and whilst doing so identifies existing research gaps and emphasizes directions for future work.
Topics: Humans; Pleurotus; Agaricus; Bacteria; Mycelium
PubMed: 36626759
DOI: 10.1093/jambio/lxac018 -
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 -
Journal of Food and Drug Analysis Mar 2023Erinacines derived from Hericium erinaceus have been shown to possess various health benefits including neuroprotective effect against neurodegenerative diseases, yet...
Erinacines derived from Hericium erinaceus have been shown to possess various health benefits including neuroprotective effect against neurodegenerative diseases, yet the underlying mechanism remains unknown. Here we found that erinacine S enhances neurite outgrowth in a cell autonomous fashion. It promotes post-injury axon regeneration of PNS neurons and enhances regeneration on inhibitory substrates of CNS neurons. Using RNA-seq and bioinformatic analyses, erinacine S was found to cause the accumulation of neurosteroids in neurons. ELISA and neurosteroidogenesis inhibitor assays were performed to validate this effect. This research uncovers a previously unknown effect of erinacine S on raising the level of neurosteroids.
Topics: Axons; Nerve Regeneration; Neurosteroids; Mycelium; Neurons
PubMed: 37224554
DOI: 10.38212/2224-6614.3446 -
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 -
Biomacromolecules Sep 2019Mycelium, the vegetative growth of filamentous fungi, has attracted increasing commercial and academic interest in recent years because of its ability to upcycle...
Mycelium, the vegetative growth of filamentous fungi, has attracted increasing commercial and academic interest in recent years because of its ability to upcycle agricultural and industrial wastes into low-cost, sustainable composite materials. However, mycelium composites typically exhibit foam-like mechanical properties, primarily originating from their weak organic filler constituents. Fungal growth can be alternatively utilized as a low-cost method for on-demand generation of natural nanofibrils, such as chitin and chitosan, which can be grown and isolated from liquid wastes and byproducts in the form of fungal microfilaments. This study characterized polymer extracts and nanopapers produced from a common mushroom reference and various species of fungal mycelium grown on sugarcane byproduct molasses. Polymer yields of ∼10-26% were achieved, which are comparable to those of crustacean-derived chitin, and the nanopapers produced exhibited much higher tensile strengths than the existing mycelium materials, with values of up to ∼25 MPa (mycelium) and ∼98 MPa (mushroom), in addition to useful hydrophobic surface properties resulting from the presence of organic lipid residues in the nanopapers. HCl or HO treatments were used to remove these impurities facilitating tuning of mechanical, thermal, and surface properties of the nanopapers produced. This potentially enables their use in a wide range of applications including coatings, membranes, packaging, and paper.
Topics: Chitin; Chitosan; Fungi; Hydrogen Peroxide; Industrial Waste; Mycelium; Polymers; Surface Properties; Tensile Strength
PubMed: 31355634
DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.9b00791 -
Fungal Genetics and Biology : FG & B Oct 2023Filamentous fungi develop intricate hyphal networks that support mycelial foraging and transport of resources. These networks have been analyzed recently using graph...
Filamentous fungi develop intricate hyphal networks that support mycelial foraging and transport of resources. These networks have been analyzed recently using graph theory, enabling the development of models that seek to predict functional traits. However, attention has focused mainly on mature colonies. Here, we report the extraction and analysis of the graph corresponding to Trichoderma atroviride mycelia only a few hours after conidia germination. To extract the graph for a given mycelium, a mosaic conformed of multiple bright-field, optical microscopy images is digitally processed using freely available software. The resulting graphs are characterized in terms of number of nodes and edges, average edge length, total mycelium length, hyphal growth unit, maximum edge length and mycelium diameter, for colonies between 8 h and 14 h after conidium germination. Our results show that the emerging hyphal network grows first by hyphal elongation and branching, and then it transitions to a stage where hyphal-hyphal interactions become significant. As a tangled hyphal network develops with decreasing hyphal mean length, the mycelium maintains long (∼2 mm) hyphae-a behavior that suggests a combination of aggregated and dispersed architectures to support foraging. Lastly, analysis of early network development in Podospora anserina reveals striking similarity with T. atroviride, suggesting common mechanisms during initial colony formation in filamentous fungi.
Topics: Mycelium; Hyphae; Fungi; Microscopy
PubMed: 37453457
DOI: 10.1016/j.fgb.2023.103823