The MADS box protein MCM1 controls diverse developmental processes and is essential for fruiting body formation in the homothallic ascomycete Sordaria macrospora. MADS box proteins derive their regulatory specificity from a wide range of different protein interactions. We have recently shown that the S. macrospora MCM1 is able to interact with the alpha-domain mating-type protein SMTA-1. To fur...

In filamentous fungi, autophagy functions as a catabolic mechanism to overcome starvation and to control diverse developmental processes under normal nutritional conditions. Autophagy involves the formation of double-membrane vesicles, termed autophagosomes that engulf cellular components and bring about their degradation via fusion with vacuoles. Two ubiquitin-like (UBL) conjugation systems ar...

The homothallic, filamentous ascomycete Sordaria macrospora is self-fertile and produces sexual fruiting bodies (perithecia) without a mating partner. Even so, S. macrospora transcriptionally expresses two pheromone-precursor genes (ppg1 and ppg2) and two pheromone-receptor genes (pre1 and pre2). The proteins encoded by these genes are similar to alpha-factor-like and a-factor-like pheromones a...

Histone modifications occur in precise patterns, with several modifications known to affect the binding of proteins. These interactions affect the chromatin structure, gene regulation, and cell cycle events. The dual modifications on the H3 tail, serine10 phosphorylation, and lysine14 acetylation (H3Ser10PLys14Ac) are reported to be crucial for interaction with 14-3-3ζ. However, the mechanism b...

UNLABELLED Alternaria is a ubiquitous fungal genus that includes saprobic, endophytic and pathogenic species associated with a wide variety of substrates. In recent years, DNA-based studies revealed multiple non-monophyletic genera within the Alternaria complex, and Alternaria species clades that do not always correlate to species-groups based on morphological characteristics. The Alternaria co...

RNA editing is a post-transcriptional process that modifies RNA molecules leading to transcript sequences that differ from their template DNA. A-to-I editing was found to be widely distributed in nuclear transcripts of metazoa, but was detected in fungi only recently in a study of the filamentous ascomycete Fusarium graminearum that revealed extensive A-to-I editing of mRNAs in sexual structure...

PURPOSE To prevent chemotherapy-related side effects, synthetic glucocorticoids, for example, dexamethasone, are routinely administered to patients with ovarian cancer. However, preclinical data implicate glucocorticoids in suppressing chemotherapy-mediated apoptosis in epithelial tumors. The anti-apoptotic mechanisms underlying this increased survival have been shown to require up-regulation o...

Genes encoding the virulence-promoting type III secretion system (T3SS) in phytopathogenic bacteria are induced at the start of infection, indicating that recognition of signals from the host plant initiates this response. However, the precise nature of these signals and whether their concentrations can be altered to affect the biological outcome of host-pathogen interactions remain speculative...

The cosmopolitan fungal genus Alternaria consists of multiple saprophytic and pathogenic species. Based on phylogenetic and morphological studies, the genus is currently divided into 26 sections. Alternaria sect. Alternaria contains most of the small-spored Alternaria species with concatenated conidia, including important plant, human and postharvest pathogens. Species within sect. Alternaria h...

Filamentous fungi are of great importance in ecology, agriculture, medicine, and biotechnology. Thus, it is not surprising that genomes for more than 100 filamentous fungi have been sequenced, most of them by Sanger sequencing. While next-generation sequencing techniques have revolutionized genome resequencing, e.g. for strain comparisons, genetic mapping, or transcriptome and ChIP analyses, de...