Project description:Phylogenomic approaches have the potential to improve confidence about the inter-relationships of species in the order Mucorales within the fungal tree of life. Rhizopus species are especially important as plant and animal pathogens and bioindustrial fermenters for food and metabolite production. A dataset of 192 orthologous genes was used to construct a phylogenetic tree of 21 Rhizopus strains, classified into four species isolated from habitats of industrial, medical and environmental importance. The phylogeny indicates that the genus Rhizopus consists of three major clades, with R. microsporus as the basal species and the sister lineage to R. stolonifer and two closely related species R. arrhizus and R. delemar A comparative analysis of the mating type locus across Rhizopus reveals that its structure is flexible even between different species in the same genus, but shows similarities between Rhizopus and other mucoralean fungi. The topology of single-gene phylogenies built for two genes involved in mating is similar to the phylogenomic tree. Comparison of the total length of the genome assemblies showed that genome size varies by as much as threefold within a species and is driven by changes in transposable element copy numbers and genome duplications.
Project description:Rhizopus rot is a serious postharvest disease of various crops caused by <i>Rhizopus</i> spp. and controlled mainly by synthetic fungicides. We detected the antifungal activity of a culture extract of <i>Setosphaeria rostrata</i> F3736 against <i>Rhizopus oryzae</i>. The active ingredient was identified as moriniafungin, a known sordarin derivative, which showed minimum inhibitory concentrations of 1-8 ?g/ml against <i>Colletotrichum</i> spp. and 0.03-0.13 ?g/ml against <i>Rhizopus</i> spp. <i>in vitro</i>. Moriniafungin showed protective control efficacies against Rhizopus rot on apple and peach fruits. Treatment with 25 ?g/ml moriniafungin delimited the lesion diameter significantly by 100% on <i>R. oryzae</i>-inoculated apple fruits compared with the non-treated control. Treatment with 0.04 ?g/ml of moriniafungin reduced the lesion diameter significantly by 56.45%, and treatment with higher concentrations of 0.2-25 ?g/ml reduced the lesion diameter by 70-90% on <i>Rhizopus stolonifer</i> var. <i>stolonifer</i>-inoculated peach fruit. These results suggest moriniafungin has potential as a control agent of postharvest diseases caused by <i>Rhizopus</i> spp.
Project description:Cellulolytic fungi have evolved a sophisticated genetic regulatory network of cellulase synthesis to adapt to the natural environment. Even in the absence of lignocellulose, it still secretes low levels of "constitutive" cellulase for standby application. However, the mechanisms of this constitutive expression remain incompletely understood. Here we identified a cellobiose synthetase (CBS) from Rhizopus stolonifer, which has the capacity to catalyse the synthesis of cellobiose from uridine diphosphate glucose (UDPG). Through the construction of R. stolonifer ?cbs strain, we found that CBS plays a key role in the synthesis of cellulase. Further analysis of cellulase synthesis under glucose culture reveals that the cellobiose-responsive regulator CLR1 was activated by CBS-synthesized cellobiose, thereby promoting the expression of CLR2 and finally opening the transcription of cellulase genes. Our results suggest that R. stolonifer can be induced by self-synthesized cellobiose to produce cellulase, which can be used to reconstruct the expression regulation network to achieve rapid production of cellulase using simple carbon source. Based on our data, the "constitutive expression" of cellulase actually derives from the induction of cellobiose that synthesized by CBS from carbohydrate metabolites, which updates our knowledge of cellulase, and provides a novel insight into the regulation of cellulase synthesis.
Project description:This research aimed to develop a rapid and nondestructive method to model the growth and discrimination of spoilage fungi, like Botrytis cinerea, Rhizopus stolonifer and Colletotrichum acutatum, based on hyperspectral imaging system (HIS). A hyperspectral imaging system was used to measure the spectral response of fungi inoculated on potato dextrose agar plates and stored at 28°C and 85% RH. The fungi were analyzed every 12 h over two days during growth, and optimal simulation models were built based on HIS parameters. The results showed that the coefficients of determination (R2) of simulation models for testing datasets were 0.7223 to 0.9914, and the sum square error (SSE) and root mean square error (RMSE) were in a range of 2.03-53.40×10(-4) and 0.011-0.756, respectively. The correlation coefficients between the HIS parameters and colony forming units of fungi were high from 0.887 to 0.957. In addition, fungi species was discriminated by partial least squares discrimination analysis (PLSDA), with the classification accuracy of 97.5% for the test dataset at 36 h. The application of this method in real food has been addressed through the analysis of Botrytis cinerea, Rhizopus stolonifer and Colletotrichum acutatum inoculated in peaches, demonstrating that the HIS technique was effective for simulation of fungal infection in real food. This paper supplied a new technique and useful information for further study into modeling the growth of fungi and detecting fruit spoilage caused by fungi based on HIS.
Project description:Mucormycosis is an uncommon opportunistic infection and the gastrointestinal form is the rarest. Rhizopus sp. is the most frequent pathogen and infection occurs almost exclusively in immunocompromised patients. We describe the first case of intestinal mucormycosis occurring after a Streptococcus pyogenes toxic shock syndrome in a previously healthy patient caused by Rhizopus microsporus var. azygosporus.
Project description:Soursop (Annona muricata) is a tropical fruit that can be infected by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and Rhizopus stolonifer. Traditional methods used for postharvest disease control include the application of fungicides, however due to their excessive use, as well as their persistence in the environment, the development of new strategies that control pathogens are required. The application of chitosan (Chi), salicylic acid (SA) and methyl jasmonate (MJ) is an environmentally-friendly alternative with antimicrobial properties and also induces defense mechanisms in plant tissues. In this study, Colletotrichum was reactivated and Rhizopus was identified using morphological features and molecular tools. In vitro, the application of 0.5 and 1.0% of Chi alone or in combination with SA and MJ decreased mycelial growth and sporulation, a complete inhibition of spore germination was obtained. Thus, the application of Chi in combination with SA and MJ could be a smart strategy to inhibit the development of pathogens that attack soursop fruit.
Project description:Monohexosylceramides (CMHs) are highly conserved fungal glycosphingolipids playing a role in several cellular processes such as growth, differentiation and morphological transition. In this study, we report the isolation, purification and chemical characterization of CMHs from Rhizopus stolonifer and R. microspores. Using positive ion mode ESI-MS, two major ion species were observed at m/z 750 and m/z 766, respectively. Both ion species consisted of a glucose/galactose residue attached to a ceramide moiety containing 9-methyl-4,8-sphingadienine with an amidic linkage to a hydroxylated C16:0 fatty acid. The antimicrobial activity of CMH was evaluated against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria using the agar diffusion assay. CMH from both Rhizopus species inhibited the growth of Bacillus terrae, Micrococcus luteus (M. luteus) and Pseudomonas stutzeri (P. stutzeri) with a MIC50 of 6.25, 6.25 and 3.13 mg/mL, respectively. The bactericidal effect was detected only for M. luteus and P. stutzeri, with MBC values of 25 and 6.25 mg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, the action of CMH on the biofilm produced by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was analyzed using 12.5 and 25 mg/mL of CMH from R. microsporus. Total biofilm biomass, biofilm matrix and viability of the cells that form the biofilm structure were evaluated. CMH from R. microsporus was able to inhibit the MRSA biofilm formation in all parameters tested.