Functional genomics of morphogenesis in filamentous ascomycetes

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Minou Nowrousian
• Subject Area: Plant Cell and Developmental Biology ; Evolution and Systematics of Plants and Fungi ; Plant Genetics and Genomics
• Term: from 2016 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 324272192

This project aims at identifying molecular mechanisms that regulate fruiting body development in filamentous ascomycetes. During the first phase of the project, we performed comparative transcriptomics analyses of the three ascomycetes Ascodesmis nigricans, Pyronema confluens, and Sordaria macrospora to identify evolutionary conserved patterns of gene expression. The results indicate that gene expression patterns in fruiting bodies are to some degree conserved and are quite distinct from gene expression patterns in vegetative mycelium. Among 83 genes that are upregulated in developing fruiting bodies of all three species, genes encoding proteins with predicted roles in vesicle transport, the endomembrane system, or transport across membranes, and genes encoding proteins with predicted roles in chromatin organization or the regulation of gene expression are strongly represented. Four genes with conserved expression during fruiting body development were functionally characterized by generating deletion mutants in S. macrospora. Thereby, three novel developmental genes were identified. In the proposed second phase of the project, we will focus on genes encoding chromatin modifiers and transcription factors, and their role in developmental regulation of chromatin structure, histone modifications and gene expression. Preliminary data indicate that histone modifications might be different from the wild type in the S. macrospora histone chaperone mutant asf1, which has a block during early fruiting body development. We will analyze histone modifications in the S. macrospora wild type and developmental mutants at a genome-wide level using ChIP-seq. Modifications that change during development will also be analyzed in different developmental stages in A. nigricans and P. confluens. Furthermore, we will analyze the chromatin structure at different developmental stages using Hi-C, and analyze the results together with transcriptome data and results on histone modifications to establish an integrated picture of chromatin and gene expression changes during fungal development. In addition, we will analyze protein-protein interactions between chromatin modifier proteins, identify protein domains required for these interactions and for the developmental functions of the proteins, and characterize additional putative developmental genes based on the results of available and novel gene expression data.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants