Project description:In order to study the effect of light on gene expression in Schizophyllum commune, genome wide gene expression was analysed in 4-day-old monokaryotic and dikaryotic wild type colonies, grown either in light or in darkness.
Project description:The transcription factors Hom2 and Fst4 were shown to be involved in mushroom development in the basidiomycete Schizophyllum commune. When the genes encoding Hom2 or Fst4 were deleted, no mushrooms formed. In this study we performed a genome-wide expression analysis on dikaryons of wild-type, delta-hom2 and delta-fst4.
Project description:Schizophyllum commune is a wood decay fungus known for its antioxidant, anti-tumor, immunological, and antimicrobial properties. Nonetheless, the effects of growth conditions on the activation of metabolic pathways are still poorly understood for this fungus. To this aim, proteomics is one of the most powerful approaches in medicine and biology for the characterization of molecular pathways, protein regulation, and protein-protein interactions of living organisms. A crucial aspect of the proteomics pipeline is the protein extraction method, since it strongly influences the information gained on molecular processes and the understanding of underlying biological mechanisms. In this work, Schizophyllum commune was employed as a model fungus to compare the efficiency of two popular protein extraction methods and to analyze the proteomic profile of mycelium grown in liquid medium. A strain of Schizophyllum commune preserved in the Fungal Research Culture Collection of the University of Pavia (MicUNIPV) was grown on a culture medium composed of malt extract and its protein content was assessed by two distinct extraction methods followed by mass spectrometry analyses. The results show that the protocol based on the combined use of Tris-Cl and Urea led to a significantly higher extraction efficiency, both in terms of the number of proteins identified and the variety of the cellular compartments characterized. Furthermore, functional analysis on identified proteins shows that specific metabolic processes are activated in the growth phase under investigation: catabolism and anabolism of proteins and polysaccharides, pentose phosphate shunt, tricarboxylic acid cycle, and oxidative stress response. Altogether, these results show how to optimize the investigation of the proteomic profiles of Schizophyllum commune, and how this approach would lead to an expansion of its potential industrial applications.
