First insight into Chaetosphaeriaceae biology using genomic data

The species of the Chaetosphaeriaceae (Chaetosphaeriales, Sordariomycetes, Ascomycota) are microscopic asexually reproducing fungi, some of which belong to the life cycle of sexual morphs with macroscopic fruit bodies (~300 μm diam) perceptible as “black dots” on the surface of decaying plants. They are invisible to most of the people and difficult to find even by a trained eye. In addition, they are usually hard to cultivate and slow growing, what make them difficult to study. Traditionally, they are reported from the decaying plant matter in the forest habitat and some exhibit endophytic lifestyle . Surprisingly, analysis of metabarcoding data showed that they are also common soil fungi, dwelling in a bulk soil in grasslands and croplands. There are about 44 genera classified into this family  with monographs available for several genera, but with very little knowledge about their biology. Studies showed that Chaetosphaeriaceae members are important degraders of lignocellulose in wood, litter and soil and have rich structural diversity of natural compounds (e.g. terpenoids, cyclic peptides, naphthoquinones, lactones, lipopeptides, xanthones). Three unpublished and unannotated draft genomes of Chaetosphaeriaceae are available (1000 fungal genome project). Nevertheless, the information about the genetic background of the basic pathways is missing in this fungal lineage. The same is true for the whole Chaetosphaeriales. Our study is filling this gap using analysis of genomes from 16 species.