title: Nothing special in the specialist? Draft genome sequence of Cryomyces antarcticus, the most extremophilic fungus from Antarctica.
abstract: The draft genome of the Antarctic endemic fungus Cryomyces antarcticus is presented. This rock inhabiting, microcolonial fungus is extremely stress tolerant and it is a model organism for exobiology and studies on stress resistance in Eukaryots. Since this fungus is a specialist in the most extreme environment of the Earth, the analysis of its genome is of important value for the understanding of fungal genome evolution and stress adaptation. A comparison with Neurospora crassa as well as with other microcolonial fungi shows that the fungus has a genome size of 24 Mbp, which is the average in the fungal kingdom. Although sexual reproduction was never observed in this fungus, 34 mating genes are present with protein homologs in the classes Eurotiomycetes, Sordariomycetes and Dothideomycetes. The first analysis of the draft genome did not reveal any significant deviations of this genome from comparative species and mesophilic hyphomycetes.
authors.affiliation: VIBT Extremophile Center, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sterflinger
authors.affiliation: VIBT Extremophile Center, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Ksenija
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lopandic
authors.affiliation: Austrian Institute of Technology, Vienna, Austria; Institute of Population Genetics, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Ram Vinay
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Pandey
authors.affiliation: VIBT Extremophile Center, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blasi
authors.affiliation: Austrian Institute of Technology, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kriegner
mesh_terms: D000864:Antarctic Regions; D001203:Ascomycota / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D001482:Base Composition; D049770:Genes, Mating Type, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D059646:Genome Size; D016681:Genome, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D023281:Genomics; D042845:Laccase / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D048630:Polyketide Synthases / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D048630:Polyketide Synthases; D042845:Laccase