Home • Meredithblackwellia eburnea MCA 4105 v1.0
Toome et al. 2013. Reprinted with permission from Mycologia.  ©The Mycological Society of America.
Toome et al. 2013. Reprinted with permission from Mycologia. ©The Mycological Society of America.

Meredithblackwellia eburnea Toome & Aime is a newly described white Pucciniomycotina (Basidiomycota) yeast species that was isolated from a fern leaf in a Neotropical rainforest in Guyana. To date, ATCC MYA-4884 is the only known strain of this species and genus.  Meredithblackwellia eburnea is a non-fermenting yeast that forms creamy white colonies in culture.  Cells bud from the poles forming characteristic rosette-like clusters. No sexual state is known for this fungus.  
Meredithblackwellia eburnea belongs to Microbotryomycetes (Kriegeriales, Kriegeriaceae), along with many other plant-associated fungi, but is to date the only member of Kriegeriales known from the tropics; other fungi in this order were isolated from either psychrophilic environments (e.g. ice, glaciers, Antarctic sea) or from plant surfaces in temperate zones. Genomic data produced for this project will represent the first available for a member of Kriegeriales.  Researchers will use these data in phylogenetic and phylogenomic reconstructions and in comparative genomics studies that seek to elucidate the molecular bases governing the production of yeast states and the evolution of pathogenicity in Pucciniomycotina.

If you would like to use this genome in your research, please contact Dr. M. Catherine Aime ([email protected]) and Dr. Igor Grigoriev ([email protected]) for permission.

References:
Toome M, Roberson RW, Aime MC. 2013. Meredithblackwellia eburnea gen. et sp. nov., Kriegeriaceae fam. nov. and Kriegeriales ord. nov. – toward resolving higher-level classification in Microbotryomycetes. Mycologia 105: 486–495.