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The Diversity of Polyketide Synthase Genes from Sugarcane-Derived Fungi

  • Fungal Microbiology
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Abstract

The chemical ecology and biotechnological potential of metabolites from endophytic and rhizosphere fungi are receiving much attention. A collection of 17 sugarcane-derived fungi were identified and assessed by PCR for the presence of polyketide synthase (PKS) genes. The fungi were all various genera of ascomycetes, the genomes of which encoded 36 putative PKS sequences, 26 shared sequence homology with β-ketoacyl synthase domains, while 10 sequences showed homology to known fungal C-methyltransferase domains. A neighbour–joining phylogenetic analysis of the translated sequences could group the domains into previously established chemistry-based clades that represented non-reducing, partially reducing and highly reducing fungal PKSs. We observed that, in many cases, the membership of each clade also reflected the taxonomy of the fungal isolates. The functional assignment of the domains was further confirmed by in silico secondary and tertiary protein structure predictions. This genome mining study reveals, for the first time, the genetic potential of specific taxonomic groups of sugarcane-derived fungi to produce specific types of polyketides. Future work will focus on isolating these compounds with a view to understanding their chemical ecology and likely biotechnological potential.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Dr. Léia Cécilia de Lima Fávaro and Dr. Aline Silva Romão from ESLQ/USP for the fungal isolates used in this study. We also thank Prof. Russell J. Cox from the University of Bristol for his advice during the early stages of this work and to Dr. Fernando Peláez and Dr. Paul Long for their critical review. This project was funded by The Academy of Science for the Developing World (TWAS), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB), Universidade de São Paulo, CEP 05508-900, São Paulo, Brazil

    Juan Diego Rojas, Welington L. de Araujo, Mateus Schreiner Garcez Lopes, Luiziana Ferreira da Silva, Renata L. A. Furlan & Gabriel Padilla

  2. Divisão de Recursos Microbianos—CPQBA, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), CEP 13081-970, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Lara Durães Sette

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  1. Juan Diego Rojas
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Correspondence to Gabriel Padilla.

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Rojas, J.D., Sette, L.D., de Araujo, W.L. et al. The Diversity of Polyketide Synthase Genes from Sugarcane-Derived Fungi. Microb Ecol 63, 565–577 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-011-9938-0

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