Heather Hallen, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Department of
Plant Biology, 166 Plant Biology Laboratories, Michigan State
University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1312, USA. hallenhe@msu.edu
Jonathan Walton, Ph.D.
Professor, MSU DOE Plant
Research Laboratory, 106 Plant Biology
Laboratories, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1312,
USA. walton@msu.edu
History and Status:
The Amanita Genome
Project was begun in Jonathan Walton's lab in 2004 as part of our
ongoing studies of Amanita
bisporigera. A. bisporigera,
one of the "destroying angels", is one of the commonest deadly
mushrooms in eastern and midwestern North America. Deadly Amanita species, including A. bisporigera, several
other destroying angels (A. virosa,
A. verna and A. ocreata),
and the death cap (A. phalloides), are responsible for
nearly 90% of fatal mushroom poisonings in humans worldwide. Despite
their lethal reputation, Amanita
species are very important ecologically, as they form mutually
beneficial mycorrhizal relationships with trees.
To date (March, 2008), we have
generated approximately 9000
unidirectional sequencing reads using dideoxy sequencing using an ABI
3730 Genetic Analyzer and an ABI Prism 3700 DNA Analyzer (sequencing
performed at the Research
Technologies Support Facility at Michigan State University, and by Macrogen,
Inc.) We have also completed four runs on a Genome Sequencer 20
from 454 Life Sciences (~100 bp reads), and one on a Genome Sequencer
FLX (~250 bp reads). We have 57.8 Mb non-redundant sequence, but
sequence
assembly is still in the very early stages.
Amanita
bisporigera, mature fruiting bodies
We have taken the Amanita bisporigera
database offline while we process and integrate our new data. If you
are a researcher and would like to search the database, please contact us.
Annotation is very incomplete at present, and it would be easiest if
you were to send us a sequence or sequences of interest, which we could
BLAST against the Amanita
genome.
Data from the 454 sequence has enabled us to identify the amatoxin and phallotoxin biosynthetic genes and begin to characterize a new gene family, about which we are very excited. This was published as Hallen HE, H Luo, JS Scott-Craig & JD Walton (2007) Gene family encoding the major toxins of lethal Amanita mushrooms. PNAS 104:19097-19101. You may view the abstract here.
Links of interest
<http://pluto.njcc.com/~ret/amanita/mainaman.html>
- Your best source for All Things Amanita,
maintained by Dr. Rodham
Tulloss and Dr. Zhu-Liang Yang.
<>
- similarity calculator, mycological consulting and more (hard-core
mycological tools)
<http://www.basidiomycetes.org> - A gateway to basidiomycete research, including basidiomycete genome projects.
<http://wit.integratedgenomics.com/GOLD/>
- Genomes On Line Database. Summary of publicly funded genome projects.
<http://www.msafungi.org/>
- Mycological Society of America website.
<http://www.tomvolkfungi.net>
- Home of the Fungus of the Month, among other fascinations.
<http://www.prl.msu.edu/walton/>
- The Walton Lab webpage. Amanita's
not your thing? - Then check out the exciting world of host-specific
toxins, Cochliobolus carbonum,
maize cell walls and more!
<http://www.msu.edu/user/hallenhe/>
- More fun with Amanita,
amatoxins, general mycology, and the odd chameleon, at Heather Hallen's
webpage.
updated
3/27/08 by HH