Fungi and Algae Research
- (Madison, Wisconsin - Alvin Wei-Jen Wong)
- Overview
Research on fungi and algae explores their diverse, mutualistic, and parasitic interactions to advance bioenergy, environmental sustainability, and medicine.
Key areas include using their genomic potential for biofuels and bioproducts, developing wastewater treatment systems through co-cultivation, and discovering natural bioactive compounds. Recent studies reveal novel symbioses where algal cells inhabit fungal hyphae.
These interactions are crucial for carbon cycling and have played a significant role in the evolutionary history of Earth.
Key Areas of Fungi-Algae Research:
- Bioenergy and Bioeconomy: DOE/Joint Genome Institute researchers analyze genomes to boost bioenergy production, with studies showing that Nannochloropsis oceanica (algae) and Mortierella elongata (fungus) can form stable, mutualistic relationships, optimizing lipid production.
- Environmental Sustainability: Fungal-algal co-cultivation is used for wastewater treatment, efficiently removing phosphorus, nitrogen, and pollutants. Fungi also aid in harvesting algae through self-flocculation, creating high-quality, low-cost biomass.
- Medicinal and Bioactive Properties: Studies from National Institutes of Health (NIH) highlight fungi and algae as sources for natural antibiotics, antioxidants, and secondary metabolites with therapeutic potential.
- Unique Symbiotic Relationships: Research has uncovered, as reported in eLife and PubMed, that some algal cells can actually live inside fungal hyphae, transferring carbon to the fungus while the fungus provides nitrogen. This defies the traditional view that these interactions are exclusively external (like in lichens).
- Marine Biotechnology: National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) note that marine fungi associated with macroalgae produce enzymes that break down algal biomass, providing potential tools for industrial degradation processes.
[More to come ...]
