Journal
APPLIED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 79, Issue 12, Pages 3770-3778Publisher
AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY
DOI: 10.1128/AEM.03833-12
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Roche 454 Life Sciences 10 GB grant
- Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
- U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) Pan-omics program at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research national scientific user facility on the PNNL campus
- DOE [DE-AC05-76RL01830]
- National Science Foundation [DEB-0747002, MCB-0702025, MCB-0731822]
- DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DOE Office of Science BER) [DE-FC02-07ER64494]
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0747002] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Plants represent a large reservoir of organic carbon comprised primarily of recalcitrant polymers that most metazoans are unable to deconstruct. Many herbivores gain access to nutrients in this material indirectly by associating with microbial symbionts, and leaf-cutter ants are a paradigmatic example. These ants use fresh foliar biomass as manure to cultivate gardens composed primarily of Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, a basidiomycetous fungus that produces specialized hyphal swellings that serve as a food source for the host ant colony. Although leaf-cutter ants are conspicuous herbivores that contribute substantially to carbon turnover in Neotropical ecosystems, the process through which plant biomass is degraded in their fungus gardens is not well understood. Here we present the first draft genome of L. gongylophorus, and, using genomic and metaproteomic tools, we investigate its role in lignocellulose degradation in the gardens of both Atta cephalotes and Acromyrmex echinatior leaf-cutter ants. We show that L. gongylophorus produces a diversity of lignocellulases in ant gardens and is likely the primary driver of plant biomass degradation in these ecosystems. We also show that this fungus produces distinct sets of lignocellulases throughout the different stages of biomass degradation, including numerous cellulases and laccases that likely play an important role in lignocellulose degradation. Our study provides a detailed analysis of plant biomass degradation in leaf-cutter ant fungus gardens and insight into the enzymes underlying the symbiosis between these dominant herbivores and their obligate fungal cultivar.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available