Genomics and regulation of fungal enzyme secretion

Filamentous fungi are important platforms for industrial cellulase production because of their ability to secrete a wide variety of enzymes that digest substrates such as plant biomass. A significant number of high enzyme secretion mutant strains have been generated over the last several decades in various ascomycete species. In order to develop a mechanistic understanding of the biological pathways that mediate biomass deconstruction enzyme secretion, we have “resequenced” and analyzed the genomes of a significant number of strains harboring enzyme secretion mutants. Our initial analyses in three different species of filamentous fungi indicate that a limited number of orthologous genes are utilized to regulate the fungal secretome.