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In the past half century, filamentous fungi have grown in commercial importance not only in the food industry but also as sources of pharmaceutical agents for the treatment of infectious and metabolic diseases and of specialty proteins and enzymes used to process foods, fortify detergents, and perform biotransformations. The commercial impact of molds is also measured on a negative scale since some of these organisms are significant as pathogens of crop plants, agents of food spoilage, and sources of toxic and carcinogenic compounds. Recent advances in the molecular genetics of filamentous fungi are finding increased application in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and enzyme industries, and this trend promises to continue as the genomics of fungi is explored and new techniques to speed genetic manipulation become available.
This volume focuses on the filamentous fungi and highlights the advances of the past decade, both in methodology and in the understanding of genomic organization and regulation of gene and pathway expression.
List of contents
I. Genetic Technology.- 1. Practical Molecular Taxonomy of Fungi.- Genomics of Filamentous Fungi.- A Molecular Tool Kit for Fungal Biotechnology.- Transformation Mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens.- II. Special (Secondary) Metabolism.- 5. Fungal Polyketide Synthases in the Information Age.- More Functions for Multifunctional Polyketide Synthases.- Peptide Synthesis Without Ribosomes.- Isoprenoids: Gene Clusters and Chemical Puzzles.- III. Enzymes and Green Chemistry.- Heterologous Expression and Protein Secretion in Filamentous Fungi.- Artificial Evolution of Fungal Proteins.- Biocatalysis and Biotransformation.- Organic Acid Production by Filamentous Fungi.- Flavors and Fragrances.- IV. Host-Fungal Interactions.- Human Mycoses: The Role of Molecular Biology.- Molecular Interactions of Phytopathogens and Hosts.- Structural and Functional Genomics of Symbiotic Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi.
Summary
In the past half century, filamentous fungi have grown in commercial importance not only in the food industry but also as sources of pharmaceutical agents for the treatment of infectious and metabolic diseases and of specialty proteins and enzymes used to process foods, fortify detergents, and perform biotransformations. The commercial impact of molds is also measured on a negative scale since some of these organisms are significant as pathogens of crop plants, agents of food spoilage, and sources of toxic and carcinogenic compounds. Recent advances in the molecular genetics of filamentous fungi are finding increased application in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and enzyme industries, and this trend promises to continue as the genomics of fungi is explored and new techniques to speed genetic manipulation become available.
This volume focuses on the filamentous fungi and highlights the advances of the past decade, both in methodology and in the understanding of genomic organization and regulation of gene and pathway expression.
