Nothing Special in the Specialist? Draft Genome Sequence of Cryomyces antarcticus, the Most Extremophilic Fungus from Antarctica

The draft genome of the Antarctic endemic fungus Cryomyces antarcticus is presented. This rock inhabiting, microcolonial fungus is extremely stress tolerant and it is a model organism for exobiology and studies on stress resistance in Eukaryots. Since this fungus is a specialist in the most extreme environment of the Earth, the analysis of its genome is of important value for the understanding of fungal genome evolution and stress adaptation. A comparison with Neurospora crassa as well as with other microcolonial fungi shows that the fungus has a genome size of 24 Mbp, which is the average in the fungal kingdom. Although sexual reproduction was never observed in this fungus, 34 mating genes are present with protein homologs in the classes Eurotiomycetes, Sordariomycetes and Dothideomycetes. The first analysis of the draft genome did not reveal any significant deviations of this genome from comparative species and mesophilic hyphomycetes.

本研究报道了南极特有真菌Cryomyces antarcticus的草图基因组。该栖息于岩石生境的微集落真菌具有极强抗逆性，是外空生物学及真核生物抗逆研究的模式生物。由于该真菌是地球极端环境中的特化物种，对其基因组的解析对于阐明真菌基因组演化与抗逆适应机制具有重要价值。通过与粗糙脉孢霉（Neurospora crassa）及其他微集落真菌进行比较分析，发现该真菌的基因组大小为24 Mbp，处于真菌界的平均水平。尽管从未在该真菌中观察到有性生殖现象，但其基因组中存在34个交配基因，这些基因的蛋白质同源物在散囊菌纲（Eurotiomycetes）、粪壳菌纲（Sordariomycetes）和座囊菌纲（Dothideomycetes）中均有分布。本草图基因组的首次分析未发现该基因组与参考物种及嗜温丝孢真菌存在显著差异。