Cited by 130Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive PhysiologyAnaerobic Digestion and Biogas ProductionGut microbiota and health

PCR and omics based techniques to study the diversity, ecology and biology of anaerobic fungi: insights, challenges and opportunities

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Edwards, Joan E., Forster, Robert J., Callaghan, Tony M., Dollhofer, Veronika, Dagar, Sumit S., Cheng, Yanfen, Chang, Jongsoo, Kittelmann, Sandra +7 more·2017·Frontiers in Microbiology

Abstract

Anaerobic fungi (phylum Neocallimastigomycota) are common inhabitants of the digestive tract of mammalian herbivores, and in the rumen, can account for up to 20% of the microbial biomass. Anaerobic fungi play a primary role in the degradation of lignocellulosic plant material. They also have a syntrophic interaction with methanogenic archaea, which increases their fiber degradation activity. To date, nine anaerobic fungal genera have been described, with further novel taxonomic groupings known to exist based on culture-independent molecular surveys. However, the true extent of their diversity may be even more extensively underestimated as anaerobic fungi continue being discovered in yet unexplored gut and non-gut environments. Additionally many studies are now known to have used primers that provide incomplete coverage of the Neocallimastigomycota. For ecological studies the internal transcribed spacer 1 region (ITS1) has been the taxonomic marker of choice, but due to various limitations the large subunit rRNA (LSU) is now being increasingly used. How the continued expansion of our knowledge regarding anaerobic fungal diversity will impact on our understanding of their biology and ecological role remains unclear; particularly as it is becoming apparent that anaerobic fungi display niche differentiation. As a consequence, there is a need to move beyond the broad generalization of anaerobic fungi as fiber-degraders, and explore the fundamental differences that underpin their ability to exist in distinct ecological niches. Application of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to their study in pure/mixed cultures and environmental samples will be invaluable in this process. To date the genomes and transcriptomes of several characterized anaerobic fungal isolates have been successfully generated. In contrast, the application of proteomics and metabolomics to anaerobic fungal analysis is still in its infancy. A central problem for all analyses, however, is the limited functional annotation of anaerobic fungal sequence data. There is therefore an urgent need to expand information held within publicly available reference databases. Once this challenge is overcome, along with improved sample collection and extraction, the application of these techniques will be key in furthering our understanding of the ecological role and impact of anaerobic fungi in the wide range of environments they inhabit.

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Crossref · 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01657

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  • Rumen bacteria play a dominant role in fiber digestion, although anaerobic fungi and protozoa contribute to lignocellulose breakdown by attacking lignocellulosic material differently and discharging different enzyme complexes.

    “Rumen bacteria play a dominant role in fiber digestion, although anaerobic fungi and protozoa have been reported to contribute to lignocellulose breakdown by attacking lignocellulosic material differently (60, 64) and discharging different enzyme complexes (101).”

    From Phytogenic Additives Can Modulate Rumen Microbiome to Mediate Fermentation Kinetics and Methanogenesis Through Exploiting Diet–Microbe Interaction (2020) · cites this paper as [60]

    The Proteomics section reports secreted plant-cell-wall-degrading enzymes in anaerobic fungi, and the Genomics section describes fungal cellulosomes as multi-enzyme complexes that accelerate lignocellulose degradation (pages unavailable). These passages support the enzyme-complex point for fungi, but do not establish that protozoa discharge different enzyme complexes. Citation (101) is attached to the enzyme-complex phrase, not the preceding claim about bacteria’s dominant role. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Callaghan T. M. (2014). Developing Tools for the Identification and Taxonomic Placement of the Neocallimastigales. Ph.D. Thesis. Aberystwyth University, Wales.
  2. Park M. A. (2011). Genomic and Proteomic Approaches for Elucidation of Carbohydrate Metabolism in Anaerobic Rumen Fungus, Neocallimastix frontalis PMA02. Ph.D. Thesis, Seoul National University.

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Authors
Edwards, J. E., Forster, R. J., Callaghan, T. M., Dollhofer, V., Dagar, S. S., Cheng, Y., Chang, J., Kittelmann, S., Fliegerova, K., Puniya, A. K., Henske, J. K., Gilmore, S. P., O'Malley, M. A., Griffith, G. W., & Smidt, H.
Affiliations
  • Wageningen University & Research (NL)
  • Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (CA)
  • Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (DE)
  • Agharkar Research Institute (IN)
  • Nanjing Agricultural University (CN)
  • AgResearch (NZ)
  • Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
  • National Dairy Research Institute (IN)
  • University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
  • Aberystwyth University (GB)
Corresponding author
Edwards, Joan E.
Venue
Frontiers in Microbiology
Published
2017-09-25
Volume
8
Pages
1657-1657
ISSN
1664-302X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2759809410
Cited by
130
References
174
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 1
FWCI
2.67
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Frontiers in Microbiology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
  • ASEP (submittedVersion, public-domain)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Greater South Information System
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (1553721, W911NF-09-0001)
  • U.S. Department of Energy (DESC0010352)
  • Joint Genome Institute
  • European Commission (706899)
  • Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India
  • Office of Science
  • Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (EU‐H2020)
  • Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
  • Biological and Environmental Research (DE-SC0010352)
  • Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology
  • Army Research Office (W911NF-09-0001, W911NF)
  • Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (W911NF‐09‐0001)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive Physiology
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Production
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
Keywords
anaerobic fungi, Neocallimastigomycota, rumen fungi, fungal diversity, fungal ecology, lignocellulose degradation, ITS1, large subunit rRNA, niche differentiation, fungal genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, functional annotation, reference database

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