Genome of Fungal Nemesis of Pine Trees Sequenced

Sep 22, 2009

Genome of Fungal Nemesis of Pine Trees Sequenced

Researchers in Canada have announced the sequencing of the genome of Grosmannia clavigera, a fungus found in the mouth parts of the mountain pine beetle. According to Fungus genome boosts fight to save North American forests from Nature News:

“Mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) have eaten their way through vast swathes of western North American pine forests, including around 15 million hectares in British Columbia alone. As the burrowing beetles tunnel under the bark to feed and lay eggs, they release spores of the blue-stain fungus (Grosmannia clavigera), which stops the production of a protective toxic resin released by the tree and allows the beetles to continue to infest.”

The research is important for several reasons. For one, it shows that data collected using different sequencing technologies can be combined to produce a whole-genome sequence. And, genetic data on several different organisms (the beetle, the fungus, and the host trees) is being looked at in a synergistic way to get more meaningful insights into the biological relationships between the organisms and how the disease progresses and spreads.

The original research paper, De novo genome sequence assembly of a filamentous fungus using Sanger, 454 and Illumina sequence data, appears in the open access journal Genome Biology.

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