Basidiobolus! – genus of the month at ATCC

ATCC sent out this email with the Genus of the month as Basidiobolus. It is worth noting they call out B. ranarum as inhabitant of bat and rodent guts but it is mainly known (and named) for being associated with frogs (hence the ‘rana’). It has some quite cool biology, it grows dimorphically as a yeast or hyphae, and is reported to have a large genome (Henk and Fisher PLoS One 2012). Note that the genome and transcriptome of B. meristosporus is being sequenced as part of the 1000 Fungal genomes project from samples Andrii Gryganski prepared. Don’t forget that YOU can propose genomes to this project by logging in here and submitting a proposed species in a family that is not sufficiently sampled (2 per Family). The info below is from ATCC®. I couldn’t find a link to the on their site so I am copying the email text in. There is nothing more fascinating than when a microbial species begins popping up in the literature as a true pathogen. Basidiobolus ranarum, which typically inhabits the guts of bats and small rodents, has been recently tagged as an emerging human pathogen that may have previously been unrecognized.1        B. ranarum was first added to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)1 in 1999 after 6 immunocompetent individuals tested positive for gastrointestinal basidiobolomycosis over a 5-year period. The most interesting aspect of this study, however, was the fact that each patient was originally misdiagnosed with...
Source: Fungal Genomes and Comparative Genomics - Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Authors: Tags: 1000 Fungal Genomes zygomycete andrii basidiobolus Basidiobolus ranarum fungal 1000 genomes Source Type: blogs