Two sporangia (Left) of B. helicus growing on pollen. Each sporangium produces dozens to hundreds of motile zoospores (Right), each equipped with a single posteriorly oriented flagellum. (photo credit: Timothy James, University of Michigan)

Blyttiomyces helicus (Rhizophlyctidales, Chytridiomycota) is from an understudied group of fungi and is a specialized saprotroph which grows on pollen. While it has not been cultured despite numerous attempts to do so, the species can be grown to a high density of cells through enrichment methods using spruce pollen. These single cells were used for sequencing and assembly.

B. helicus represents one of many diverse taxa that are of high interest for the 1000 Fungal Genomes project. It has been selected as part of a Fungal single-cell genome sequencing pilot project.