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DOE JGI’s Prochnik in Discovery News

“This one-celled organism hunts and eats bacteria as an amoeba, swims around looking for a better environment as a flagellate, and then hunkers down and waits for good times as a cyst,” said Simon Prochnik, a computational scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. “It is a very rare process to go… [Read More]

Xylose-fermenting yeast project in Ethanol Producer

Using Mother Nature as their teacher, researchers at the U.S. DOE’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, along with the DOE’s Joint Genome Institute, have sequenced the genomes of two types of yeasts found in bark beetles and then compared and contrasted the results with other yeasts’ genome sequences to determine which can best convert the… [Read More]

Eucalyptus genome project on Science in Public

The genome of one of Australia’s biggest Eucalyptus trees, the Flooded Gum or Eucalyptus grandis, has now been mapped, allowing scientists and conservationists an insight into the secrets of an important piece of Australiana.Eucalyptus has become the most popular plantation tree in the world – with millions of hectares planted in Africa, America, Europe and… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) genome on ScienceNewsline

As reported online July 14 in Science Express, an international team of scientists including DOE JGI researchers compared the genome of Serpula lacrymans, the second brown rot fungus to have its genome sequenced, against 10 other published fungal genomes. The DOE JGI sequenced seven of these genomes among them Postia placenta, the first brown rot… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) genome project on eNews Park Forest

In 2007 the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute sequenced Serpula lacrymans in order to see if the way it breaks down cellulose in wood could be harnessed for biofuel production. An international team analysing the genome have found the enzyme mechanisms that could explain the aggressive decay caused by this form of dry… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) project in Biofuels Journal

“For example, if you go back far enough in time to the period when trees were developing, there was no way to break lignocellulose down, which led to the coal seams we tap today.“When the fungi figured out how to break down lignocellulose, the coevolution of the fungi and trees kick-started the carbon cycle again.”… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) genome project on Greenwire

Researchers have sequenced the genome for brown rot — also known as dry rot — in a step that could have applications for biofuels and better understanding of forest carbon cycling. Dry rot, a scourge of homeowners, is a fungus that decays wood by attacking its sugars — cellulose and hemicellulose — and working around… [Read More]

Dry rot (Serpula) genome project on WalesOnline

WELSH scientists are looking at harnessing the power of the virulent fungus which causes dry rot to help make biofuels of the future. Closer examination of the damaging fungus Serpula lacrymans as part of an international project led by Swansea University could also hold the key to protecting buildings from dry rot. Read more at… [Read More]

Serpula genome project on MyCor Fungal Web Genomics

The other good news of this Bastille Day: our paper on the Serpula lacrymans genome is reported online July 14 in Science Express. The Domestic Dry Rot (Serpula lacrymans, Basidiomycete, Coniophoraceae) comprises two subgroups, S. lacrymans varshastensis, found in montane conifer forests in the Himalayan foothills, and S. lacrymans var lacrymans, cause of building dry rot, which diverged in historic time [Kauserud et al. (2007) Mol. Ecol.16: 3350-3360].  Read… [Read More]