Genome Sequences of Industrially Relevant Saccharomyces cerevisiae Strain M3707, Isolated from a Sample of Distillers Yeast and Four Haploid Derivatives

Antarctica's hidden mycoviral treasures in fungi isolated from mosses: A first genomic approach

This study investigates the presence of mycoviruses in Antarctic fungi and elucidates their evolutionary relationships. To achieve this, we aligned mycoviral gene sequences with genomes of previously sequenced Antarctic endophytic fungi, made available by our research group and accessible via Joint Genome Institute. Our findings reveal that the most prevalent genetic regions in all endophytic fungi are homologous to Partitiviruses, Baculoviridae, and Phycodnaviridae. These regions display evidence of positive selection pressure, suggesting genetic diversity and the accumulation of nonsynonymous mutations. This phenomenon implies a crucial role for these regions in the adaptation and survival of these fungi in the challenging Antarctic ecosystems. The presence of mycoviruses in Antarctic endophytic fungi may indicate shared survival strategies between the virus and its host, shedding light on their evolutionary dynamics. This study underscores the significance of exploring mycoviruses within endophytic fungi and their contributions to genetic diversity. Future research avenues could delve into the functional implications of these conserved mycoviral genetic regions in Antarctic endophytic fungi, providing a comprehensive understanding of this intriguing association and genomic retention of viral region in fungi.

Genus-Wide Comparative Genome Analyses of Colletotrichum Species Reveal Specific Gene Family Losses and Gains during Adaptation to Specific Infection Lifestyles

Members from Colletotrichum genus adopt a diverse range of lifestyles during infection of plants and represent a group of agriculturally devastating pathogens. In this study, we present the draft genome of Colletotrichum incanum from the spaethianum clade of Colletotrichum and the comparative analyses with five other Colletotrichum species from distinct lineages. We show that the C. incanum strain, originally isolated from Japanese daikon radish, is able to infect both eudicot plants, such as certain ecotypes of the eudicot Arabidopsis, and monocot plants, such as lily. Being closely related to Colletotrichum species both in the graminicola clade, whose members are restricted strictly to monocot hosts, and to the destructivum clade, whose members are mostly associated with dicot infections, C. incanum provides an interesting model system for comparative genomics to study how fungal pathogens adapt to monocot and dicot hosts. Genus-wide comparative genome analyses reveal that Colletotrichum species have tailored profiles of their carbohydrate-degrading enzymes according to their infection lifestyles. In addition, we show evidence that positive selection acting on secreted and nuclear localized proteins that are highly conserved may be important in adaptation to specific hosts or ecological niches.

Genome-wide array-CGH analysis reveals YRF1 gene copy number variation that modulates genetic stability in distillery yeasts

Industrial yeasts, economically important microorganisms, are widely used in diverse biotechnological processes including brewing, winemaking and distilling. In contrast to a well-established genome of brewer's and wine yeast strains, the comprehensive evaluation of genomic features of distillery strains is lacking. In the present study, twenty two distillery yeast strains were subjected to electrophoretic karyotyping and array-based comparative genomic hybridization (array-CGH). The strains analyzed were assigned to the Saccharomyces sensu stricto complex and grouped into four species categories: S. bayanus, S. paradoxus, S. cerevisiae and S. kudriavzevii. The genomic diversity was mainly revealed within subtelomeric regions and the losses and/or gains of fragments of chromosomes I, III, VI and IX were the most frequently observed. Statistically significant differences in the gene copy number were documented in six functional gene categories: 1) telomere maintenance via recombination, DNA helicase activity or DNA binding, 2) maltose metabolism process, glucose transmembrane transporter activity; 3) asparagine catabolism, cellular response to nitrogen starvation, localized in cell wall-bounded periplasmic space, 4) siderophore transport, 5) response to copper ion, cadmium ion binding and 6) L-iditol 2- dehydrogenase activity. The losses of YRF1 genes (Y' element ATP-dependent helicase) were accompanied by decreased level of Y' sequences and an increase in DNA double and single strand breaks, and oxidative DNA damage in the S. paradoxus group compared to the S. bayanus group. We postulate that naturally occurring diversity in the YRF1 gene copy number may promote genetic stability in the S. bayanus group of distillery yeast strains.

Genomic insights into the Saccharomyces sensu stricto complex

The Saccharomyces sensu stricto group encompasses species ranging from the industrially ubiquitous yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to those that are confined to geographically limited environmental niches. The wealth of genomic data that are now available for the Saccharomyces genus is providing unprecedented insights into the genomic processes that can drive speciation and evolution, both in the natural environment and in response to human-driven selective forces during the historical "domestication" of these yeasts for baking, brewing, and winemaking.

Completing bacterial genome assemblies: strategy and performance comparisons

Determining the genomic sequences of microorganisms is the basis and prerequisite for understanding their biology and functional characterization. While the advent of low-cost, extremely high-throughput second-generation sequencing technologies and the parallel development of assembly algorithms have generated rapid and cost-effective genome assemblies, such assemblies are often unfinished, fragmented draft genomes as a result of short read lengths and long repeats present in multiple copies. Third-generation, PacBio sequencing technologies circumvented this problem by greatly increasing read length. Hybrid approaches including ALLPATHS-LG, PacBio corrected reads pipeline, SPAdes, and SSPACE-LongRead, and non-hybrid approaches--hierarchical genome-assembly process (HGAP) and PacBio corrected reads pipeline via self-correction--have therefore been proposed to utilize the PacBio long reads that can span many thousands of bases to facilitate the assembly of complete microbial genomes. However, standardized procedures that aim at evaluating and comparing these approaches are currently insufficient. To address the issue, we herein provide a comprehensive comparison by collecting datasets for the comparative assessment on the above-mentioned five assemblers. In addition to offering explicit and beneficial recommendations to practitioners, this study aims to aid in the design of a paradigm positioned to complete bacterial genome assembly.

Genomic evolution of Saccharomyces cerevisiae under Chinese rice wine fermentation

Rice wine fermentation represents a unique environment for the evolution of the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To understand how the selection pressure shaped the yeast genome and gene regulation, we determined the genome sequence and transcriptome of a S. cerevisiae strain YHJ7 isolated from Chinese rice wine (Huangjiu), a popular traditional alcoholic beverage in China. By comparing the genome of YHJ7 to the lab strain S288c, a Japanese sake strain K7, and a Chinese industrial bioethanol strain YJSH1, we identified many genomic sequence and structural variations in YHJ7, which are mainly located in subtelomeric regions, suggesting that these regions play an important role in genomic evolution between strains. In addition, our comparative transcriptome analysis between YHJ7 and S288c revealed a set of differentially expressed genes, including those involved in glucose transport (e.g., HXT2, HXT7) and oxidoredutase activity (e.g., AAD10, ADH7). Interestingly, many of these genomic and transcriptional variations are directly or indirectly associated with the adaptation of YHJ7 strain to its specific niches. Our molecular evolution analysis suggested that Japanese sake strains (K7/UC5) were derived from Chinese rice wine strains (YHJ7) at least approximately 2,300 years ago, providing the first molecular evidence elucidating the origin of Japanese sake strains. Our results depict interesting insights regarding the evolution of yeast during rice wine fermentation, and provided a valuable resource for genetic engineering to improve industrial wine-making strains.

Prevalence of transcription factors in ascomycete and basidiomycete fungi

Background

Gene regulation underlies fungal physiology and therefore is a major factor in fungal biodiversity. Analysis of genome sequences has revealed a large number of putative transcription factors in most fungal genomes. The presence of fungal orthologs for individual regulators has been analysed and appears to be highly variable with some regulators widely conserved and others showing narrow distribution. Although genome-scale transcription factor surveys have been performed before, no global study into the prevalence of specific regulators across the fungal kingdom has been presented.

Results

In this study we have analysed the number of members for 37 regulator classes in 77 ascomycete and 31 basidiomycete fungal genomes and revealed significant differences between ascomycetes and basidiomycetes. In addition, we determined the presence of 64 regulators characterised in ascomycetes across these 108 genomes. This demonstrated that overall the highest presence of orthologs is in the filamentous ascomycetes. A significant number of regulators lacked orthologs in the ascomycete yeasts and the basidiomycetes. Conversely, of seven basidiomycete regulators included in the study, only one had orthologs in ascomycetes.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates a significant difference in the regulatory repertoire of ascomycete and basidiomycete fungi, at the level of both regulator class and individual regulator. This suggests that the current regulatory systems of these fungi have been mainly developed after the two phyla diverged. Most regulators detected in both phyla are involved in central functions of fungal physiology and therefore were likely already present in the ancestor of the two phyla.