Fungal Genetics Stock Center
Encyclopedia
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
characterized fungi
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
. The FGSC is a member of the World Federation for Culture Collections
World Federation for Culture Collections
The World Federation for Culture Collections is an international body formed under the umbrella of the International Union of Biological Sciences and a Federation within the International Union of Microbiological Societies....
and the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Federation of Culture Collections.
Holdings
The FGSC distributes strains of NeurosporaNeurospora
Neurospora is a genus of Ascomycete fungi. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spores that resemble axons....
and Aspergillus
Aspergillus
Aspergillus is a genus consisting of several hundred mold species found in various climates worldwide. Aspergillus was first catalogued in 1729 by the Italian priest and biologist Pier Antonio Micheli...
, as well as limited numbers of Fusarium
Fusarium
Fusarium is a large genus of filamentous fungi widely distributed in soil and in association with plants. Most species are harmless saprobes, and are relatively abundant members of the soil microbial community. Some species produce mycotoxins in cereal crops that can affect human and animal health...
, Magnaporthe
Magnaporthe
Magnaporthe is a genus of ascomycete fungi. Several of the species are cereal pathogens. There are 5 species....
and most strains from current fungal genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
projects.
In the 1980s and 1990s the FGSC added molecular materials including cloned
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
s, cloning vector
Cloning vector
A cloning vector is a small piece of DNA into which a foreign DNA fragment can be inserted. The insertion of the fragment into the cloning vector is carried out by treating the vehicle and the foreign DNA with a restriction enzyme that creates the same overhang, then ligating the fragments...
s and gene libraries
Gene library
A genomic library is a population of host bacteria, each of which carries a DNA molecule that was inserted into a cloning vector, such that the collection of cloned DNA molecules represents the entire genome of the source organism...
to the collection.
As more fungal genomes have been sequenced, the FGSC has re-evaluated the definition of a genetic system. This has led them to expand the collection, with additional materials including strains from genome programs and mutant collections for organisms such as Neurospora crassa
Neurospora crassa
Neurospora crassa is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestation of French bakeries in 1843. N...
, Aspergillus nidulans
Aspergillus nidulans
Aspergillus nidulans is one of many species of filamentous fungi in the phylum Ascomycota...
, Phycomyces blakesleeanus
Phycomyces blakesleeanus
Phycomyces blakesleeanus is a filamentous fungus in the Order Mucorales of the phylum Zygomycota or subphylum Mucormycotina. The spore-bearing sporangiophores of Phycomyces are very sensitive to different environmental signals including light, gravity, wind, chemicals and adjacent objects...
, and Schizophyllum commune
Schizophyllum commune
Schizophyllum commune is a very common species of mushroom in the genus Schizophyllum. It is the world's most widely distributed mushroom, occurring on every continent except Antarctica....
.
As a genetic repository, the FGSC has always endeavored to represent the diversity of genetic materials available. To that end, they hold large numbers of strains of a few different species. More specifically, strains from 76 different species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
representing 23 different genera
Genera
Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...
. Of these, there are more than ten strains for only nineteen different species.
These strains have been deposited by 310 different individuals, 64 of whom have deposited only one strain. The FGSC also holds a number of non-accessioned strains including the wild-type strain collection of Dr. David Perkins
David Perkins (geneticist)
David Dexter Perkins was an American geneticist, a member of the faculty of Stanford University for more than 58 years, from 1948 until his death in 2007. He received his PhD in Zoology in 1949 from Columbia University. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he served as President of the...
as well as Neurospora strains from a number of other researchers who have retired. These are held with the understanding that they will keep them as long as space is available. They are not curated and are available on an as-is basis. They also hold 48,000 tagged integrants of Magnaporthe grisea
Magnaporthe grisea
Magnaporthe grisea, also known as rice blast fungus, rice rotten neck, rice seedling blight, blast of rice, oval leaf spot of graminea, pitting disease, ryegrass blast, and Johnson spot, is a plant-pathogenic fungus that causes an important disease affecting rice. It is now known that M...
.
Distribution
In the period from January 1998 to May 2007, the FGSC distributed 10,883 cultures of 4,602 different strains. 2,044 strains were sent more than once. Since the development of the FGSC databaseDatabase
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
in 1987, the FGSC has sent out
over 33,000 strains.
Since adding targeted gene deletion strains of Neurospora
Neurospora
Neurospora is a genus of Ascomycete fungi. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spores that resemble axons....
crassa, Cryptococcus neoformans and Candida albicans to the collection we have distributed well over 400,000 strains.
History
The FGSC was founded in 1960 at Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
with a grant from the US National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
. Dr. R. Barratt was the first Director of the FGSC. The FGSC has moved three times since then and has been housed at Humboldt State University
Humboldt State University
Humboldt State University is the northernmost campus of the California State University system, located in Arcata within Humboldt County, California, USA. The main campus, nestled at the edge of a coast redwood forest, is situated on Preston hill overlooking Arcata and with commanding views of...
, the University of Kansas Medical Center
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
and, since 2004, the University of Missouri–Kansas City
University of Missouri–Kansas City
The University of Missouri–Kansas City is a public university located in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. It is a branch of the University of Missouri System. Its main campus is in Kansas City's Rockhill neighborhood east of the Country Club Plaza...
.
Support
The FGSC is supported by the US National Science Foundation under their Living Stock Collection program. The FGSC has been funded under this program since 1960.Additional services
One of the main goals of the FGSC is to make research with filamentous fungi (moldMold
Molds are fungi that grow in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae. Molds are not considered to be microbes but microscopic fungi that grow as single cells called yeasts...
) more accessible. To that end the FGSC web-site hosts extensive protocols for Neurospora and Aspergillus. Other materials and services are available on a case-by-case basis.
Research
Most research activities at the FGSC are aimed at adding value to the materials in the collection. Specific projects have included strain improvement, identification of unknown markers and production of multiply marked strains. Recent work includes the characterization of otherwise anonymous temperature sensitive mutations in Neurospora and the development of selectable markers based on TS lethal strains.The FGSC is a part of the Neurospora Functional Genomics program.