Advances in Genomics of Pathogenic Fungi

A special issue of Genes (ISSN 2073-4425). This special issue belongs to the section "Microbial Genetics and Genomics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 July 2024 | Viewed by 3185

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Unidad de Microbiología, Departamento de Tecnología Médica, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Antofagasta, Antofagasta, Chile
Interests: fungi; genomics; pathogenic fungi; fungal infection; mycology

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Guest Editor
Unidad de Bioquímica, Departamento Biomédico, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Antofagasta, Antofagasta, Chile
Interests: fungi; genomics; pathogenic fungi; fungal infection; mycology
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Fungi are a diverse and large group of eukaryotes. They are distributed across all different ecological niches, such as aquatic and terrestrial environments, adapting their lives to a variety of stressful conditions, including frozen areas and deserts, high UV radiation and desiccation. A group of these fungi impact the health of plants, animals, and humans. Different fungal forms, such as mushrooms, molds and yeasts, can be toxic or pathogenic to humans, plants, animals, and other organisms.

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a guide with the fungal priority pathogens in order to develop public health actions. On the other hand, several fungi are plant pathogens causing significant economic losses in crops worldwide. Studies on the genes involved in the pathogenicity of these organisms are key for understanding their mechanisms of infection and implementing new strategies for control.

This Special Issue attempts to capture research on the genomics of pathogenic fungi. We welcome submissions on all groups of fungi (yeasts, mushrooms, plant fungal pathogens, human fungal pathogens, etc.). Both original research papers and review papers are welcome. Our focus will be on studies using multiple molecular approaches in fungal genomics.

Dr. Nicomedes Valenzuela-Lopez
Dr. Benito Gomez-Silva
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • fungal genomics
  • molds
  • yeasts
  • mushrooms
  • pathogenic fungi
  • fungal genes
  • mycology

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3056 KiB  
Article
Assessment of Candidate Reference Genes for Gene Expression Studies Using RT-qPCR in Colletotrichum fructicola from Litchi
by Dingming Dong, Rong Huang, Yuzhuan Hu, Xinyan Yang, Dagao Xu and Zide Jiang
Genes 2023, 14(12), 2216; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14122216 - 14 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 864
Abstract
Litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) is a tropical fruit originating from southern China that is currently cultivated in subtropical and tropical regions worldwide. Litchi anthracnose, caused by Colletotrichum fructicola, a dominant species of Colletotrichum spp., is an important disease of litchi that damages [...] Read more.
Litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) is a tropical fruit originating from southern China that is currently cultivated in subtropical and tropical regions worldwide. Litchi anthracnose, caused by Colletotrichum fructicola, a dominant species of Colletotrichum spp., is an important disease of litchi that damages the fruits in fields and in post-harvest storage. Real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) is a common technique with which to detect the expression of and function of target genes quickly and precisely, and stable reference genes are crucial. However, there is no comprehensive information on suitable reference genes of C. fructicola present. Here, we designed eight candidate genes (GAPDH, α-tubulin, 18S, β-tubulin, EF1a, TATA, RPS5, and EF3) using RefFinder software (programs: geNorm, ΔCt, BestKeeper, and NormFinder) to investigate their reliability in the detection of C. fructicola under five different treatments (fungal development stage, temperature, UV, culture medium, and fungicide). The results showed the optimal reference genes under different conditions: EF1a and α-tubulin for developmental stage; α-tubulin and β-tubulin for temperature; α-tubulin and RPS5 for UV treatment; RPS5 and α-tubulin for culture medium; α-tubulin, GAPDH, and TATA for fungicide treatments. The corresponding expression patterns of HSP70 (Heat shock protein 70) were significantly different when the most and the least stable reference genes were selected when treated under different conditions. Our study provides the first detailed list of optimal reference genes for the analysis of gene expression in C. fructicola via RT-qPCR, which should be useful for future functional studies of target genes in C. fructicola. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Genomics of Pathogenic Fungi)
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10 pages, 8211 KiB  
Article
Improved RAPD Method for Candida parapsilosis Fingerprinting
by Iwona Wojciechowska-Koszko, Magdalena Mnichowska-Polanowska, Paulina Roszkowska, Michał Sławiński, Stefania Giedrys-Kalemba, Barbara Dołęgowska, Monika Sienkiewicz, Beata Hukowska-Szematowicz and Paweł Kwiatkowski
Genes 2023, 14(4), 868; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14040868 - 05 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1866
Abstract
Recently, methods based on the analysis of arbitrarily amplified target sites of genome microorganisms have been extensively applied in microbiological studies, and especially in epidemiological studies. The range of their application is limited by problems with discrimination and reproducibility resulting from a lack [...] Read more.
Recently, methods based on the analysis of arbitrarily amplified target sites of genome microorganisms have been extensively applied in microbiological studies, and especially in epidemiological studies. The range of their application is limited by problems with discrimination and reproducibility resulting from a lack of standardized and reliable methods of optimization. The aim of this study was to obtain optimal parameters of the Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) reaction by using an orthogonal array as per the Taguchi and Wu protocol, modified by Cobb and Clark for Candida parapsilosis isolates. High Simpson’s index values and low Dice coefficients obtained in this study indicated a high level of interspecies DNA polymorphism between C. parapsilosis strains, and the optimized RAPD method proved useful in the microbiological and epidemiological study. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Genomics of Pathogenic Fungi)
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