Comparative genomics of fungi

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Fungi are of primary importance in organic matter degradation, as well as having major economic significance as agents of diseases of plants and animals, and industrial fermentation. Fungi generally have the smallest genome sizes among higher eukaryotes.  Consequently, there are more genomes of fungi sequenced than those of animals or plants. In the first half of 2005 alone, there were over half a dozen fungal genome sequences released. The first eukaryote sequenced, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast), still remains the most extensively characterized eukaryote, in terms of the proportion of genes with an annotated function out of the total number of genes. The purpose of the proposed research is to investigate multiple fungal genomes using a bioinformatic screening approach to search for commonalities and differences in gene sequences among genomes, which can be used to assess phylogenetic and evolutionary similarities and differences, as well as to explore correlations of particular gene sets with lifestyle requirements (e.g. parasitism vs. saprotrophy). This will then be followed up with considerable laboratory experimental work to verify some of these observed differences, particularly in genomes which have not been sequenced. These objectives are part of a long term program investigating the evolution and biology of fungi, using the new tools of comparative genomics combined with basic sequence analysis techniques. Their eukaryotic nature and small genome sizes make fungi useful in comparative genomics, and, with the exponentially increasing amounts of sequence data, researchers can access and analyse these data to bring forth important discoveries of biological significance.