Collaborative Research: Phylogenomics and evolutionary history of the anaerobic fungal group, Neocallimastigomycota

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK

Investigators

Abstract

The anaerobic gut fungi differ from all other groups of fungi in two ways: they grow in the absence of oxygen, and they grow in a restricted habitat (the rumen and alimentary tract of plant eating animals). They evolved hundreds of millions of years ago and represent one of the oldest fungal groups, yet their evolutionary history is unclear. Specifically, the exact relationship between anaerobic fungi and other fungal groups, as well as the timing and sequence of events that lead to their localization to a gut habitat, remains unclear. Further, it is not exactly known how the gut habitat has affected their genomes and evolution. This project will tackle these questions by sequencing the genomes of a large, diverse collection of anaerobic gut fungi, and analyzing the data produced using a wide range of computational procedures. The proposed efforts will lead to significant advances in the understanding of the history of this peculiar group of fungi and factors driving their evolution. Further, the data obtained would be of extreme interest to a broader group of scientists working in the areas of biofuel research, animal nutrition, and molecular biology of fungi. The project will engage multiple high school and undergraduate students in research, with special effort to engage minority (especially Native American) students to advance the participation of underrepresented groups in science, technology, and math disciplines. Overall research progress on anaerobic fungi has been slow, and sequencing of anaerobic gut fungi (AGF) genomes has been hampered by their extremely high adenine-thymine content and the proliferation of intergenic repeats in their genomes. This project will utilize a new approach that combines multiple sequencing technologies to sequence the genomes and transcriptomes of a large and diverse collection of anaerobic fungal isolates. This research will utilize the data generated to conduct an extensive phylogenomic analysis, aiming to resolve their evolutionary history within the fungal tree of life, correlate the timing of AGF diversification events to the evolution of their herbivorous hosts, resolve the diversification pattern of anaerobic fungal genera, and investigate the impact of the unique habitat and evolutionary trajectory on their genomic architecture.