Nuclear populations of the multinucleate fungus of leafcutter ants can be dekaryotized and recombined to manipulate growth of nutritive hyphal nodules harvested by the ants

Growth of Leucoagaricus gongylophorus Möller (Singer) and production of key enzymes in submerged and solid-state cultures with lignocellulosic substrates

The aim of this study was to characterize the growth of the fungus Leucoagaricus gongylophorus LEU18496, isolated from the fungus garden of the nest of leaf cutter ants Atta mexicana. The fungus garden was cultivated in an artificial laboratory nest and the fungus further grown in submerged (SmC) and solid state (SSC) cultures with sugarcane bagasse, grass or model substrates containing CM-cellulose, xylan or lignin. The CO₂ production rate with grass in SmC (Vmax 34.76 mg CO₂ L_gas^-1 day^- 1) was almost four times than SSC (Vmax 9.49 mg CO₂ L_gas^-1 day^- 1), while the production rate obtained in sugarcane bagasse in SmC (Vmax 16.02 mg CO₂ L_gas^-1 day^- 1) was almost three times than that for SSC (Vmax 5.42 mg CO₂ L_gas^-1 day^- 1). In addition, the fungus grew with defined carbon substrates mixtures in SmC, but at different rates, first xylan, followed by CM-cellulose and lignin. Endoglucanase and xylanase activities (U mg_protein^-1) were detected in all cultures, the specific activity was higher in the fungus-garden, 5.2 and 1.8; followed by SSC-grass, 1.5 and 0.8, and SSC-bagasse, 0.9 and 0.8, respectively. Laccase activity in the fungus-garden was 44.8 U L^- 1 and 10.9 U L^- 1 in the SSC-grass. The gongylidia structures observed by environmental scanning electron microscopy were ca. 40 µm and the hyphae width ca. 5 µm. The results show that L. gongylophorus from A. mexicana have promising applications for the treatment of plant residues to release fermentable sugars and the production of high value lignocellulolytic enzymes such as endoglucanase, xylanase or laccases.