title: [Protein expression patterns identify morphological variability of ascomatal hairs in two species of genus Chaetomium].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Morphology of ascomatal hairs was traditionally used as a primary character in the classification of the fungal genus Chaetomium. However, the taxonomic value of ascomatal hair morphology is questioned in modern taxonomy of Chaetomium. Chaetomium indicum and C. funicola are two species proposed only by their differences in ascomatal hairs. The aim of this study is to understand the difference between these two species and their variability in the morphology of ascomatal hairs at the level of protein expression patterns, as well as to ressess the taxonomic value of the ascomatal hairs.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed microscopic examination to obtain the morphological characters of the typical and variable strains in both C. indicum and C. funicola. Then we used two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) to compare the protein expression patterns of the two species, including their typical and variable strains.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The comparison of the obtained 2DE maps indicated that C. indicum and C. funicola exhibited species-specific protein expression patterns. The phylogenetic tree derived from the distance matrix of expression patterns with Neighbor-joining algorithm also revealed that the tested strains of C. indicum and C. funicola fell into two distinct clades, among which the variant strains were grouped together with the typical strains of the same species.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The consistency of species delimitation between C. indicum and C. funicola based on morphological characters of ascomatal hairs and species-specific protein expression patterns demonstrates that ascomatal hairs can be still used as potential morphological parameters in taxonomy of Chaetomium.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. sunq512@163.com
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Xiaoyong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yuanming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Xuewei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D002597:Chaetomium / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development*; D005407:Flagella / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D015966:Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D040901:Proteomics
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins