Mobile introns and homing endonucleases genes in the mtDNA of fungi

维护健康的森林对我们的环境和经济至关重要，因此了解可能破坏这一宝贵资源的蓝斑真菌和真菌病原体的生物学和生物多样性极其重要。由于传播这些真菌的新的树皮甲虫物种的到来，昆虫媒介真菌，如蛇口藻属和Ceratcystis物种(许多是蓝斑真菌)，问题越来越严重。在山松甲虫的例子中，与某些蛇形虫物种的共生关系实际上使甲虫有可能成功地克服树的抵抗机制。本研究的重点是蓝斑真菌的分类和进化。确定蓝斑真菌线粒体基因组的特征是该计划长期目标的一部分。其目的是了解遗传元素的起源和持久性，如线粒体基因组中的可移动元素(MtDNA)，并检查这些遗传元素对mtDNA稳定性和这些树木病原体毒力的影响。此外，这些可移动元件有时编码在基因组学和生物技术中有应用的稀有切割DNA酶(内切酶)；这项研究将寻找线粒体归巢内切酶，然后进行生化检测，并试图解决它们与其他mtDNA可移动元件的关系，如I组或II组内含子。

Maintaining healthy forests is vital to our environment and economy, thus understanding the biology and biodiversity of blue-stain fungi and fungal pathogens that can damage this valuable resource is extremely important. Insect vectored fungi such as species of Ophiostoma and Ceratocystis (many are blue-stain fungi) are increasingly more problematic due to the arrival of new bark-beetle species that vector these fungi. In the case of the Mountain Pine Beetle, symbiotic relationships with certain species of Ophistoma actually make it possible for the beetle to successfully overcome the tree's resistance mechanisms. This research program focuses on the taxonomy and evolution of blue-stain fungi. Characterizing mitochondrial genomes of blue-stain fungi is part of the long term objectives of this program. The goal is to understand the origin and persistence of genetic elements such as mobile elements within mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) and examine implications these genetic elements have on mtDNA stability and on the virulence of these tree pathogens. In addition these mobile elements sometimes encode rare cutting DNA enzymes (endonucleases) that have application in genomics and biotechnology; the study will search for and then biochemically examine mitochondrial homing endonucleases and try to resolve their relationships to other mtDNA mobile elements such as group I or group II introns.