Périgord black truffle genome uncovers evolutionary origins and mechanisms of symbiosis

By Francis Martin, A. Kohler, C. Murat, R. Balestrini, Pedro M. Coutinho, O. Jaillon, B. Montanini, E. Morin, B. Noel, Riccardo Percudani and 41 more. Nature, 2010

664 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The Périgord black truffle (Tuber melanosporum Vittad.) and the Piedmont white truffle dominate today’s truffle market. The hypogeous fruiting body of T. melanosporum is a gastronomic delicacy produced by an ectomycorrhizal symbiont endemic to calcareous soils in southern Europe. The worldwide demand for this truffle has fuelled intense efforts at cultivation. Identification of processes that condition and trigger fruit body and symbiosis formation, ultimately leading to efficient crop production, will be facilitated by a thorough analysis of truffle genomic traits. In the ectomycorrhizal Laccaria bicolor, the expansion of gene families may have acted as a ‘symbiosis toolbox’. This feature may however reflect evolution of this particular taxon and not a general trait shared by all ectomycorrhizal species. To get a better understanding of the biology and evolution of the ectomycorrhizal symbiosis, we report here the sequence of the haploid genome of T. melanosporum, which at ∼125 megabases is the largest and most complex fungal genome sequenced so far. This expansion results from a proliferation of transposable elements accounting for ∼58% of the genome. In contrast, this genome only contains ∼7,500 protein-coding genes with very rare multigene families. It lacks large sets of carbohydrate cleaving enzymes, but a few of them involved in degradation of plant cell walls are induced in symbiotic tissues. The latter feature and the upregulation of genes encoding for lipases and multicopper oxidases suggest that T. melanosporum degrades its host cell walls during colonization. Symbiosis induces an increased expression of carbohydrate and amino acid transporters in both L. bicolor and T. melanosporum, but the comparison of genomic traits in the two ectomycorrhizal fungi showed that genetic predispositions for symbiosis—‘the symbiosis toolbox’—evolved along different ways in ascomycetes and basidiomycetes.

Subfields: Cell Biology, Pharmacology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/19de1d5b11e2ea05705b88f3be5a01d788ebe41b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cell Biology

In Pharmacology

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Genomic Analysis of the Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis cinerea (2011, methodology): “other fungal genomes using the same principles as described before [156].”
Evaluation of methods to estimate production, biomass and turnover of ectomycorrhizal mycelium in forests soils : A review (2013, background): “With the advance of fungal population genomics (five ECM species sequenced to date; see the website of JGI (http://genome.jgi-psf. org/) and Martin et al., 2008, 2010) in the future it may be possible to identify a universal single copy gene with adequate sequence variation for counting fungal…”
Identification of 100 fundamental ecological questions (2013, background): “…genomics has provided insight into the genetic mechanisms using which microorganisms interact with, and help shape, their environment (e. g. Martin et al. 2008, 2010), and this calls for a better understanding of the importance of microbial genotypic diversity for ecosystems (Johnson et…”
The Paleozoic Origin of Enzymatic Lignin Decomposition Reconstructed from 31 Fungal Genomes (2012, result): “According to the present results and previous data on plant symbiotic and pathogenic fungi and oomycetes it seems that most TE-rich fungi interact with living plants (35-38).”
Convergent losses of decay mechanisms and rapid turnover of symbiosis genes in mycorrhizal mutualists (2015, methodology): “The first three sequenced mycorrhizal genomes, i.e., the ECM L. bicolor and T. melanosporum 4,5 and the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis 15 , demonstrated substantial losses in PCWDE genes.”
Genome of an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus provides insight into the oldest plant symbiosis (2013, background): “Like obligate biotrophic pathogens (20) and ectomycorrhizal symbionts (21, 24), R.”
Fueling the future with fungal genomics (2011, background): “neither case are the genes expressed during symbiosis the same, except for a few membrane transporters and a GH5 glycosyl hydrolase (Martin et al. 2010).”
Mechanisms underlying beneficial plant-fungus interactions in mycorrhizal symbiosis. (2010, neutral): “and the Ascomycete Tuber melanosporum (black truffle”