Home • Valetoniellopsis laxa CBS 191.97 v1.0
Valetoniellopsis laxa by Derek Johnson
Valetoniellopsis laxa by Derek Johnson

Valetoniellopsis laxa Samuels & M.E. Barr (Hypocreales, Niessliaceae) is a saprotrophic filamentous fungus that has only been isolated once from palm leaves and is the monotype species of the genus Valetoniellopsis. Niessliaceae is a poorly understood family of fungi for which no genomes have been sequenced, and although it have been hypothesized as one of the earlier diverging lineages of the Hypocreales, robust support for its phylogenetic relationship to other families of the order (e.g., Nectriaceae, Hypocreaceae, etc.) has not been firmly established. Lineages in Hypocreales have undergone major nutritional shifts between saprotrophy, endophytism, and plant and animal pathogenicity, but the order and patterns of these ecological and nutritional transitions remains unclear due to the unresolved phylogenetic relationships of the early diverging clades. Sequencing the genome of V. laxa and other members of Niessliaceae will allow a genome scale phylogeny to clarify these evolutionary transitions and allow deeper examinations of diversification and evolution of primary metabolism (e.g., CAZyme and proteases) as a response to nutritional and host shifts