Home • Leiotrametes menziesii CIRM-BRFM 1781 v1.0
Picture from Cony Decock, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Picture from Cony Decock, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

This genome was sequenced as part of the JGI CSP “Survey of the lignocellulolytic capabilities over the order Polyporales” project. Within Agaricomycotina, the order Polyporales is the major group of wood decayers in temperate and tropical forests. As such, Polyporales have a pivotal role in the global carbon cycle. Polyporales include a large number of white-rot filamentous fungi able to totally degrade lignin from wood through the production of extracellular lignin-degrading enzymes including laccases, lignin peroxidases and manganese peroxidases. Lignocellulose is a high potential renewable resource for the production of biofuels and chemicals, including high-value chemicals, from biomass. As a consequence, white-rot filamentous fungi have a high potential for biotechnological processes, particularly for lignocellulosic feedstock biorefinery applications.

Leiotrametes menziesii (Berk.) Welti & Courtec., belongs to the proposed novel genus Leiotrametes Welti & Courtec. gen. nov., nested in the Trametes clade of the core polyporoid group (Welti et al., Fungal Diversity, 2012). This white-rot fungus has been found in Paleotropical and Neotropical areas. pilei of L. menziesii are fine to slightly fleshy, sessile to shortly stipitate. Mostly gregarious, pilei arise from dead fallen trunks in meso-hygrophile area. Pilear surfaces are glabrous, concentrically zoned by a various shades of gray, white, and brown color. Hymenophores iare white and the pores, initially circular, thereafter slightly elongate. The ability of L. menziesii to deconstruct raw biomass has been demonstrated by saccharification assays on wheat straw and miscanthus (Zhou et al., Microb. Biotechnol., 2015).

The genome sequencing of L. menziesii will allow exploration of novel biocatalysts and deepen our understanding of the functional diversity among the Polyporales.

Genome Reference(s)

References

Welti, S. et al. Molecular phylogeny of Trametes and related genera, and description of a new genus Leiotrametes. Fungal Diversity (2012) 55: 47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13225-011-0149-2

Zhou, S. et al. Solid-state fermentation in multi-well plates to assess pretreatment efficiency of rot fungi on lignocellulose biomass. Microbial Biotechnology (2015) 8: 940–949. doi:10.1111/1751-7915.12307