The homologue of Lentinula edodes ctg1, a target for CDC5 and its interacting partner CIPB, from Coprinopsis cinerea is involved in fruitingbody morphogenesis of C. cinerea

Lessons on fruiting body morphogenesis from genomes and transcriptomes of Agaricomycetes

Fruiting bodies (sporocarps, sporophores or basidiomata) of mushroom-forming fungi (Agaricomycetes) are among the most complex structures produced by fungi. Unlike vegetative hyphae, fruiting bodies grow determinately and follow a genetically encoded developmental program that orchestrates their growth, tissue differentiation and sexual sporulation. In spite of more than a century of research, our understanding of the molecular details of fruiting body morphogenesis is still limited and a general synthesis on the genetics of this complex process is lacking. In this paper, we aim at a comprehensive identification of conserved genes related to fruiting body morphogenesis and distil novel functional hypotheses for functionally poorly characterised ones. As a result of this analysis, we report 921 conserved developmentally expressed gene families, only a few dozens of which have previously been reported to be involved in fruiting body development. Based on literature data, conserved expression patterns and functional annotations, we provide hypotheses on the potential role of these gene families in fruiting body development, yielding the most complete description of molecular processes in fruiting body morphogenesis to date. We discuss genes related to the initiation of fruiting, differentiation, growth, cell surface and cell wall, defence, transcriptional regulation as well as signal transduction. Based on these data we derive a general model of fruiting body development, which includes an early, proliferative phase that is mostly concerned with laying out the mushroom body plan (via cell division and differentiation), and a second phase of growth via cell expansion as well as meiotic events and sporulation. Altogether, our discussions cover 1 480 genes of Coprinopsis cinerea, and their orthologs in Agaricus bisporus, Cyclocybe aegerita, Armillaria ostoyae, Auriculariopsis ampla, Laccaria bicolor, Lentinula edodes, Lentinus tigrinus, Mycena kentingensis, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Pleurotus ostreatus, and Schizophyllum commune, providing functional hypotheses for ~10 % of genes in the genomes of these species. Although experimental evidence for the role of these genes will need to be established in the future, our data provide a roadmap for guiding functional analyses of fruiting related genes in the Agaricomycetes. We anticipate that the gene compendium presented here, combined with developments in functional genomics approaches will contribute to uncovering the genetic bases of one of the most spectacular multicellular developmental processes in fungi. Citation: Nagy LG, Vonk PJ, Künzler M, Földi C, Virágh M, Ohm RA, Hennicke F, Bálint B, Csernetics Á, Hegedüs B, Hou Z, Liu XB, Nan S, M. Pareek M, Sahu N, Szathmári B, Varga T, Wu W, Yang X, Merényi Z (2023). Lessons on fruiting body morphogenesis from genomes and transcriptomes of Agaricomycetes. Studies in Mycology 104: 1-85. doi: 10.3114/sim.2022.104.01.

Evolutionary Morphogenesis of Sexual Fruiting Bodies in Basidiomycota: Toward a New Evo-Devo Synthesis

The development of sexual fruiting bodies is one of the most complex morphogenetic processes in fungi. Mycologists have long been fascinated by the morphological and developmental diversity of fruiting bodies; however, evolutionary developmental biology of fungi still lags significantly behind that of animals or plants. Here, we summarize the current state of knowledge on fruiting bodies of mushroom-forming Basidiomycota, focusing on phylogenetic and developmental biology. Phylogenetic approaches have revealed a complex history of morphological transformations and convergence in fruiting body morphologies. Frequent transformations and convergence is characteristic of fruiting bodies in contrast to animals or plants, where main body plans are highly conserved. At the same time, insights into the genetic bases of fruiting body development have been achieved using forward and reverse genetic approaches in selected model systems. Phylogenetic and developmental studies of fruiting bodies have each yielded major advances, but they have produced largely disjunct bodies of knowledge. An integrative approach, combining phylogenetic, developmental, and functional biology, is needed to achieve a true fungal evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) synthesis for fungal fruiting bodies.

Overproduction of geranylgeraniol in Coprinopsis cinerea by the expression of geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase gene

(E, E, E)-Geranylgeraniol (GGOH) is a valuable ingredient of many perfumes and a valuable precursor for synthesizing pharmaceuticals. In an attempt to increase the GGOH concentration in Coprinopsis cinerea, we demonstrated that the expression of geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase (ggpps) gene isolated from Taxus x media could promote GGOH production. Furthermore, the concentrations of squalene and ergosterol were measured in the engineered strains. Expectedly, significant decreases of squalene and ergosterol levels were observed in those strains transformed with ggpps gene. This could be explained by the partial redirection of metabolic flux from squalene to GGOH, whose biosynthesis competes for the same precursor with squalene. This work suggested that the expression of ggpps in higher fungi was an effective method for bio-production of GGOH.

Cc.snf5, a gene encoding a putative component of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex, is essential for sexual development in the agaricomycete Coprinopsis cinerea

We characterized a Coprinopsis cinerea mutant strain, Spe20, defective in fruiting initiation, which was isolated after restriction enzyme-mediated integration (REMI) mutagenesis of a homokaryotic fruiting strain, 326. A plasmid rescue followed by complementation experiments, RACE, and cDNA analyses revealed that the gene, a mutation of which is responsible for the phenotype, is predicted to encode a protein that exhibits a high similarity to yeast Snf5p, a key component of the chromatin remodeling complex SWI/SNF, and named Cc.snf5. Cc.Snf5 is, however, different from Snf5p in that the former has, in addition to an Snf5 domain comprising N-terminal repeat1 (rp1) and C-terminal repeat2 (rp2) subdomains in a middle region, a GATA Zn-finger domain in a C-terminal region. In strain Spe20, plasmid pPHT1 used for REMI is inserted in the ORF encoding rp2. This raised the possibility that in strain Spe20, the disrupted Cc.Snf5 is functionally active albeit incompletely because it retains rp1. Thus, we disrupted the whole SNF5 domain and its downstream peptide and found that the disruption results in inhibition of not only fruiting initiation but also dikaryon development, a prerequisite for fruiting. We also found that specific disruption of the Zn-finger domain results in inhibition of fruiting initiation. These results indicate that Cc.Snf5 plays an essential role in sexual development of C. cinerea.

Efficient gene targeting in ΔCc.ku70 or ΔCc.lig4 mutants of the agaricomycete Coprinopsis cinerea

Coprinopsis cinerea is a model for studies of sexual development in agaricomycetes (homobasidiomycetes). Efficient gene targeting should facilitate such studies, especially because increasing genome and transcriptome information is now available in C. cinerea. To estimate the frequency of gene disruption by homologous integration in this fungus, we tried to disrupt Cc.wc-2, which encodes a WC-2 homolog, a partner of the fungal blue-light photoreceptor, WC-1. Disruption of Cc.wc-2 did not occur when recipients (protoplasts) of the disrupting construct were prepared from asexual spores, oidia, from the wild type, 326, while it occurred when protoplasts were prepared from mycelial cells from the same strain, albeit at a low frequency (3%). Double-stranded RNA-mediated silencing of a ku70 homolog, named Cc.ku70, or the lig4 homolog Cc.lig4 more or less increased the frequency of Cc.wc-2 targeting. On the basis of these results, we disrupted Cc.ku70 using a Cc.lig4-silenced strain. We then disrupted Cc.lig4 using the Cc.ku70 disruptant. We found that the disruption of Cc.ku70 or Cc.lig4 greatly enhanced gene targeting. In addition, this study demonstrates that Cc.wc-2 is involved in blue light perception in this fungus.

A mutation in the Cc.ubc2 gene affects clamp cell morphogenesis as well as nuclear migration for dikaryosis in Coprinopsis cinerea

The formation and proliferation of the dikaryon in the agaricomycete Coprinopsis cinerea is controlled by the mating type genes, A and B. The B genes, which encode pheromones and pheromone receptors, control nuclear migration for dikaryosis as well as the fusion of the clamp cell with the subterminal cell while the A genes, which encode two classes of homeodomain proteins, control conjugate nuclear division associated with clamp connection development. We characterized the mutant, B28, which was newly isolated as a strain that fails to form a primary hyphal knot, the first visible sign toward fruiting, from a homokaryotic fruiting strain after REMI mutagenesis. Detailed phenotypic analysis revealed that strain B28 exhibits, in addition to the fruiting defect, a defect in A-regulated clamp cell morphogenesis as well as a defect in B-regulated nuclear migration for dikaryosis. The mutant clamp cells are unique in that they continue growing like branches without fusing with the subterminal cells, in contrast to the unfused pseudoclamp which are normally formed in A-on B-off strains, providing evidence for the existence of an as yet unidentified mechanism for the growth suppression of the clamp cell. Molecular analysis revealed that the gene responsible for the phenotypes, designated Cc.ubc2, encodes a protein similar to Ubc2, an adaptor protein for filamentous growth, pheromone response and virulence in the smut fungus Ustilago maydis. In addition, western blot analysis demonstrated that the Cc.ubc2-1 mutation blocks phosphorylation of a presumptive MAP kinase.