Journal Article
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 113, iss. 39, pp. 10968-10973, 2016
Authors
Jiwei Zhang, Gerald N. Presley, Kenneth E. Hammel, Jae-San Ryu, Jon R. Menke, Melania Figueroa, Dehong Hu, Galya Orr, Jonathan S. Schilling
Abstract
Significance
Wood-decomposing fungi are key players in the carbon cycle and are models for making energy from lignocellulose, sustainably. Our study focuses on brown rot fungi that selectively remove carbohydrates, leaving most lignin behind. These fungi often decompose wood faster than their lignin-degrading white rot ancestors, despite losses in genes involved in plant cell wall hydrolysis. To explain brown rot, many have implicated reactive oxygen species (ROS) in facilitating hydrolysis, with microenvironmental gradients partitioning ROS from enzymes. By spatially colocalizing gene expression and enzyme activities as
Postia placenta
colonizes wood, we provide evidence of an oxidative-hydrolytic two-step mechanism controlled by differential expression, not microenvironments, and we highlight 549 genes (∼4% of the genome) that are upregulated during this unique pretreatment.
