Photomicrograph of a mature Rhizopus microsporus sporangium, strain ATCC 11559, stained with lactophenol cotton blue (100x magnification). Courtesy of Antonio Tapia-Moragón and Dr. Pedro L. Valero-Guillén (University of Murcia)

Rhizopus microsporus is a fungus belonging to the Mucorales order that is considered a model for understanding the interaction between early diverging terrestrial fungi and bacterial endosymbionts. This partnership regulates physiology and development of the fungus, contributing to its pathogenesis in plants and animals. In addition, R. microsporus shows high levels of N₆-adenine DNA methylation (6mA), an epigenetic mark that is associated with active gene transcription in early diverging fungi. ATCC 11559, a nonhost strain that does not allow bacterial endosymbiosis, has proved to be an ideal mucoralean model for the development of genetics molecular tools to manipulate its genome (Lax et al., 2021). The availability of these tools and a high-quality ATCC 11559 genome sequence will facilitate unveiling the role of 6mA in regulation of gene expression in early diverging fungi. Moreover, they will also promote a better understanding the interactions between fungi and bacteria.

References:
Lax C, Navarro-Mendoza MI, Pérez-Arques C, Navarro E, Nicolás FE, Garre V. Stable and reproducible homologous recombination enables CRISPR-based engineering in the fungus Rhizopus microsporus. Cell Rep Methods. 2021 Dec 6;1(8):100124. doi: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2021.100124.