Home • Mortierella gamsii AM1032 v1.0
Figure 1. Mycelial network of Mortierella gamsii. Image courtesy of Julian Liber.
Figure 1. Mycelial network of Mortierella gamsii. Image courtesy of Julian Liber.

Within the framework of the ‘Comparative genomics of early diverging terrestrial fungi and their bacterial endosymbionts’ CSP project, we are exploring interactions and evolutionary histories of early diverging lineages of terrestrial fungi and their endobacteria (Uehling et al. 2017). Towards this goal, we are sequencing metagenomes and metatranscriptomes of a diverse panel of fungi in Mucoromycota that host endohyphal bacteria.

Mortierella is a large genus of fungi within Mucoromycota, formally classified as zygomycetes.  Mortierella are distributed globally and are frequently isolated and detected in soils and plant rhizospheres. Many species grow rapidly, in part owing to their coenocytic mycelium that has occasional septa and frequent anastomosis. Mortierella are considered to be haploid and heterothallic, although some isolates have been reported to be homothallic (Gams et al. 1972).

Mortierella gamsii is a common soil dwelling species of Mortierella that produces chlamydospores and sporangiophores, although spore abundance varies considerably between isolates. The isolate sequenced here, Mortierella gamsii AM1032 (Figure 1) was isolated from the wall of a cave in Illinois. This isolate has a rosette colony morphology characteristic of many Mortierella species, and is colonized by a novel endohyphal bacterium that is classified as a Mollicute-related endosymbiont (MRE).

References:
Gams, W., Chiu-Yuan Chien, and K. H. Domsch. 1972. Zygospore formation by the heterothallic Mortierella elongata and a related homothallic species, M. epigama sp.nov.. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 58 (1): 5–IN2.

Uehling J, Gryganskyi A, Hameed K, Tschaplinski T, Misztal PK, Wu S, Desirò A, Vande Pol N, Du Z, Zienkiewicz A, Zienkiewicz K, Morin E, Tisserant E, Splivallo R, Hainaut M, Henrissat B, Ohm R, Kuo A, Yan J, Lipzen A, Nolan M, LaButti K, Barry K, Goldstein A, Labbé J, Schadt C, Tuskan G, Grigoriev I, Martin F, Vilgalys R, Bonito G. 2017. Comparative genomics of Mortierella elongata and its bacterial endosymbiont Mycoavidus cysteinexigens. Environmental Microbiology. DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.13669