Monday, August 12, 2013: 3:00 PM
Spinnaker (Sheraton San Diego)
Thermomyces lanuginosus is a thermophilic fungus that is general found in composting material and produce various carbohydrate hydrolysising enzymes. Because of this ability, it has been identified as one of the organisms that can have various industrial applications. Although a few proteins from this fungus have been cloned and used commercially, the vast majority is still unknown. In order to identify new protein candidates and understand the biochemical interactions, the T. lanuginosus genome was sequenced and assembled forming a genome size of 23.3 Mb containing 30 scaffolds. Protein prediction identified 5,105 candidates as protein-coding genes and these genes models were supported by expressed sequence tag and transcriptomic data. The total number of biomass degrading and related proteins that fall into the CAZY family was 224. Most of these proteins were similar to other filamentous fungi proteins. As this fungus is a thermophilic fungus, proteins that are related to temperature control would be vital for survival. Interestingly out of the 46 proteins identified with this biological function were linked to DNA and nucleic acids. This could point to the importance of maintaining genetic material integrity at high temperature. The genome sequencing of this fungus has provided valuable information obtained that can be used for various biotechnological application.