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•Glucans are the most abundant compounds in the fungal cell walls.•The most common type of glucose bonding is 1 → 3, both alpha and beta.•Microfibrillar glucans with chitin provide ...rigidity to the fungal wall.•Fungal beta glucans act as PAMPS during infection of animals and plants.
Glucans are the most abundant polysaccharides in the cell walls of fungi, and their structures are highly variable. Accordingly, their glucose moieties may be joined through either or both alpha (α) or beta (β) linkages, they are either lineal or branched, and amorphous or microfibrillar. Alpha 1,3 glucans sensu strictu (pseudonigerans) are the most abundant alpha glucans present in the cell walls of fungi, being restricted to dikarya. They exist in the form of structural microfibrils that provide resistance to the cell wall. The structure of beta glucans is more complex. They are linear or branched, and contain mostly β 1,3 and β 1,6 linkages, existing in the form of microfibrils. Together with chitin they constitute the most important structural components of fungal cell walls. They are the most abundant components of the cell walls in members of all fungal phyla, with the exception of Microsporidia, where they are absent.
Taking into consideration the importance of glucans in the structure and physiology of the fungi, in the present review we describe the following aspects of these polysaccharides: i) types and distribution of fungal glucans, ii) their structure, iii) their roles, iv) the mechanism of synthesis of the most important ones, and v) the phylogentic relationships of the enzymes involved in their synthesis.
Macropanax rosthornii original to China is applied to ornamental and medicinal plants in China. In recent years, it has been damaged by the foliar disease in Jiangxi province, and its growth and ...value have been affected. To accurately identify the agent, morphological characters, multi-genes phylogenetic analyses (ITS, ACT, TUB2, CHS-1, and GAPDH), and pathogenicity tests were performed. The results indicated that C. fioriniae could infect M. rosthornii and result in anthracnose disease. As far as we know, this finding is the first time to report that C. fioriniae is responsible for causing M. rosthornii anthracnose in China.
•New pathogen of Macropanax rosthornii foliage disease.•New host of Colletotrichumfioriniae.
From December 2019, an outbreak of unusual pneumonia was reported in Wuhan with many cases linked to Huanan Seafood Market that sells seafood as well as live exotic animals. We investigated two ...patients who developed acute respiratory syndromes after independent contact history with this market. The two patients shared common clinical features including fever, cough, and multiple ground-glass opacities in the bilateral lung field with patchy infiltration. Here, we highlight the use of a low-input metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) approach on RNA extracted from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). It rapidly identified a novel coronavirus (named 2019-nCoV according to World Health Organization announcement) which was the sole pathogens in the sample with very high abundance level (1.5% and 0.62% of total RNA sequenced). The entire viral genome is 29,881 nt in length (GenBank MN988668 and MN988669, Sequence Read Archive database Bioproject accession PRJNA601736) and is classified into β-coronavirus genus. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that 2019-nCoV is close to coronaviruses (CoVs) circulating in Rhinolophus (Horseshoe bats), such as 98.7% nucleotide identity to partial RdRp gene of bat coronavirus strain BtCoV/4991 (GenBank KP876546, 370 nt sequence of RdRp and lack of other genome sequence) and 87.9% nucleotide identity to bat coronavirus strain bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21. Evolutionary analysis based on ORF1a/1b, S, and N genes also suggests 2019-nCoV is more likely a novel CoV independently introduced from animals to humans.
Why mountains matter for biodiversity Perrigo, Allison; Hoorn, Carina; Antonelli, Alexandre
Journal of biogeography,
February 2020, Letnik:
47, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Mountains are arguably Earth's most striking features. They play a major role in determining global and regional climates, are the source of most rivers, act as cradles, barriers and bridges for ...species, and are crucial for the survival and sustainability of many human societies. The complexity of mountains is tightly associated with high biodiversity, but the processes underlying this association are poorly known. Solving this puzzle requires researchers to generate more primary data, and better integrate available geological and climatic data into biological models of diversity and evolution. In this perspective, we highlight emerging insights, which stress the importance of mountain building through time as a generator and reservoir of biodiversity. We also discuss recently proposed parallels between surface uplift, habitat formation and species diversification. We exemplify these links and discuss other factors, such as Quaternary climatic variations, which may have obscured some mountain‐building evidence due to erosion and other processes. Biological evolution is complex and the build‐up of mountains is certainly not the only explanation, but biological and geological processes are probably more intertwined than many of us realize. The overall conclusion is that geology sets the stage for speciation, where ecological interactions, adaptive and non‐adaptive radiations and stochastic processes act together to increase biodiversity. Further integration of these fields may yield novel and robust insights.
The avian oncogenic viruses include Mareks disease virus (MDV), Avian Leukosis virus (ALV) and Reticuloendotheliosis virus (REV). All the three viruses as etiological agents of single and/or multiple ...oncogenic infections were reported previously in broiler and layer chickens. The present study describes the detection of these multiple oncogenic viruses by multiplex PCR from suspected samples collected from the native chicken of Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India. Out of 51 samples tested, 10 were found positive for MDV and 25 positive for ALV subgroup E and 6 samples positive for REV. Further, the representative samples were subjected to sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. The molecular characterisation of the present MDV strains showed the close proximity with strains from Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Kerala states of India with bootstrap value of 97%. Further, the current REV strain showed close relatedness with the previously known Tamil Nadu REV isolate with bootstrap value of 66%. The ALV strain identified from the backyard poultry was found to be endogenous virus and showed close identity with ALV-E China isolate with bootstrap value of 78%.
Species classified in Cordycipitaceae ( Hypocreales ) include multiple entomopathogenic fungi. Numerous changes have recently occurred in the nomenclature of cordycipitaceous fungi due to the single ...naming system proposed for pleomorphic fungi in 2011. Species of Cordycipitaceae are widely applied as herbal medicines, especially in Asian cultures. However, the diversity of Cordycipitaceae in Taiwan is based on relatively few literature records. Here we conducted a comprehensive survey of this family throughout the island of Taiwan and provided a glimpse of the diversity and distribution patterns. In addition, the present study reassesses the generic and species boundaries of Cordycipitaceae and finally provides an updated phylogenetic overview of Cordyceps and allied genera. Phylogenetic reconstructions using combined ITS, nrLSU, tef1-α , rpb1 , and rpb2 sequence data, along with morphological features, resulted in 10 novel species: Akanthomyces taiwanicus sp. nov. , Blackwellomyces taiwanensis sp. nov. , Cordyceps hehuanensis sp. nov. , C. locastrae sp. nov. , C. malleiformis sp. nov. , C. pseudorosea sp. nov. , C. siangyangensis sp. nov. , Samsoniella lasiocampidarum sp. nov. , S. yuanzuiensis sp. nov. , and Simplicillium salviniae sp. nov. ; and nine new records for Taiwan: A. kanyawimiae , A. muscarius , S. cardinalis , S. hepiali , B. lii , B. medogensis , C. lepidopterorum , C. neopruinosa , and Si. chinense . Furthermore, we provided DNA sequence data of the ex-type strains of C. ninchukispora for the first time and determined the species limits of the taxon. In addition, the present study proposed to synonymize B. staphylinidicola and C. jakajanicola under B. bassiana and C. lepidopterorum , respectively. Moreover, three species, C. roseostromata , C. kyushuensis , and C. shuifuensis , that clustered within the species clade of C. militaris are proposed to be synonymized under the latter taxon. To maintain the monophyly of Cordyceps , we propose to classify Parahevansia koratensis in Cordyceps , which makes the genus Parahevansia obsolete.
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•Phylogenetic analyses recognize four well-supported clades in Ophiocordyceps.•The new species belongs to the Hirsutella thompsonii subclade in Ophiocordyceps.•Ophiocordyceps ...puluongensis sp. nov. is described, illustrated, and compared with allies.
Termites are serious pests in agriculture and forestry, causing significant economic losses to property and the construction industry. However, only a few entomopathogenic fungi attack termites that are dominant members of most terrestrial biomes. This study contributes to the taxonomic knowledge of entomopathogenic fungi with the description of a new pathogen on termites collected from the Pu Luong Nature Reserve in Vietnam. The new termite pathogen, Ophiocordyceps puluongensis, is introduced on the basis of morphological and multigene phylogenetic evidence. Based on the combined dataset of five genes including the nuclear ribosomal small and large subunits (nrSSU and nrLSU), the elongation factor 1α (tef-1α), and the largest and the second largest subunits of RNA polymerase II (rpb1 and rpb2), phylogenetic analyses were performed by Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian inference methods to determine the phylogenetic position of O. puluongensis. Three samples of O. puluongensis are clustered in the Hirsutella thompsonii subclade of Hirsutella lineages in Ophiocordyceps, and clustered together with O. asiatica to form a separate clade from other Ophiocordyceps species. Morphologically, O. puluongensis differs from O. asiatica by its smaller and shorter perithecia, asci and ascospores, pink to reddish-orange stipes of stromata, as well as smaller fusiform or citriform conidia. The distinctiveness of this termite pathogen is strongly supported by both molecular phylogeny and morphology. The entomopathogenic fungus O. puluongensis could have the potential to be used as bioinsecticides to control termites.
With the increasing availability of molecular data, maximum likelihood approaches have gained a new central role in phylogenetic reconstructions. Extremely fast tree-search algorithms have been ...developed to handle data sets of ample size in reasonable time. In the past few years, RAxML has achieved great relevance in this field and obtained wide distribution among evolutionary biologists and taxonomists because of its high computational performance and accuracy. However, there are certain drawbacks with regard to its usability, since the program is exclusively command-line based. To overcome this problem, we developed raxmlGUI, a graphical user interface that makes the use of RAxML easier and highly intuitive, enabling the user to perform phylogenetic analyses of varying complexity. The GUI includes all main options of RAxML, and a number of functions are automated or simplified. In addition, some features extend the standard use of RAxML, like assembling concatenated alignments with automatic partitioning. RaxmlGUI is an open source Python program, available in a cross-platform package that incorporates RAxML executables for the main operating systems. It can be downloaded from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/raxmlgui/
.
Atypical porcine pestivirus (APPV), a newly discovered member of the genus Pestivirus, is considered to be associated with congenital tremors (CT) in piglets. From June 2016 to January 2018, 440 ...serum and tissue samples from CT-affected piglets in Anhui, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces were collected to detect APPV. The results showed a high level of 63.4% preference for APPV in 27 swine farms and complicated co-infection cases between APPV and other 12 swine viruses. Meanwhile, 12 novel APPV genomes were screened and identified. Results showed that complete genomes, Npro and NS5A genes of these novel 12 APPV sequences revealed 80.5%–99.8%, 78%–100% and 76.9%–99.8% nucleotide identities, respectively. Phylogenetic analyses based on sequences of full-length genomes, Npro and NS5A genes of APPV indicated three well-defined clades including a newly emerging branch in China. This study provides novel epidemiological information of APPV in China.
•440 serum and tissue samples from CT-affected piglets were collected to detect APPV.•12 novel APPV genomes were screened and identified.•6 new APPV genomic sentences indicated a newly emerging branch in China.
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