Fungal Volatile Organic Compounds: More Than Just a Funky Smell?

Many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with industry cause adverse health effects, but less is known about the physiological effects of biologically produced volatiles. This review focuses on the VOCs emitted by fungi, which often have characteristic moldy or "mushroomy" odors. One of the most common fungal VOCs, 1-octen-3-ol, is a semiochemical for many arthropod species and also serves as a developmental hormone for several fungal groups.

Genome of the red alga Porphyridium purpureum.

The limited knowledge we have about red algal genomes comes from the highly specialized extremophiles, Cyanidiophyceae. Here, we describe the first genome sequence from a mesophilic, unicellular red alga, Porphyridium purpureum. The 8,355 predicted genes in P.

Drosophila melanogaster as a model to characterize fungal volatile organic compounds.

Fungi are implicated in poor indoor air quality and may pose a potential risk factor for building/mold related illnesses. Fungi emit numerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as alcohols, esters, ethers, ketones, aldehydes, terpenoids, thiols, and their derivatives. The toxicity profile of these VOCs has never been explored in a model organism, which could enable the performance of high throughput toxicological assays and lead to a better understanding of the mechanism of toxicity.

Occurrence of soil- and tick-borne fungi and related virulence tests for pathogenicity to Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae).

Ixodes scapularis Say, the blacklegged tick, vectors Borrelia burgdorferi Johnson et al. 1984, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, the most important vector-borne disease in the United States. Efforts to reduce I.

Isolation of entomopathogenic fungi from soils and Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks: prevalence and methods.

Entomopathogenic fungi are commonly found in forested soils that provide tick habitat, and many species are pathogenic to Ixodes scapularis Say, the blacklegged tick. As a first step to developing effective biocontrol strategies, the objective of this study was to determine the best methods to isolate entomopathogenic fungal species from field-collected samples of soils and ticks from an Eastern deciduous forest where I. scapularis is common.