title: Metabolic diversity of lichen-forming ascomycetous fungi: culturing, polyketide and shikimate metabolite production, and PKS genes.
abstract: Lichens are composite and symbiotic organisms. Biologically, they often have been interpreted as one organism (fungi and algae associated within a common thallus), but taxonomically as a life form of ascomycetous fungi; as the lichen-forming fungus or "mycobiont" has been, in most cases, classified as the dominant symbiotic partner. About 46% of the ascomycota are lichen-forming, however, about 2-3% of the lichen fungi are basidiomycota. Lichen-forming fungi produce a great variety of secondary metabolites, biosynthetically derived from the acetyl polymalonyl, mevalonic and shikimate pathways. Thus, secondary metabolites comprise a significant proportion of the lichen thallus dry weight (0.1-5% or even more). The majority of secondary lichen products are aromatic polyketides, and a number of them has been shown to exhibit marked biological activity.
authors.affiliation: University of Salzburg, Department of Organismic Biology, Hellbrunner Str. 34, Salzburg, Austria. elfriede.stocker@sbg.ac.at
authors.forename: Elfie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Stocker-Wörgötter
mesh_terms: D001203:Ascomycota / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D048690:Fruiting Bodies, Fungal / Q000502:physiology*; D008011:Lichens / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D012765:Shikimic Acid / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000378:metabolism*; D013559:Symbiosis
chemical_list: D012765:Shikimic Acid