Lichen fungi do not depend on the alga for ATP production: A comment on Pogoda et al. (2018)

Gulnara Tagirdzhanova; John P. McCutcheon; Toby Spribille

doi:10.1111/mec.16010

Lichen fungi do not depend on the alga for ATP production: A comment on Pogoda et al. (2018)

Gulnara Tagirdzhanova, John P. McCutcheon, Toby Spribille

Life Sciences, School of (SOLS)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Lichen fungi live in a symbiotic association with unicellular phototrophs and most have no known aposymbiotic stage. A recent study in Molecular Ecology postulated that some of them have lost mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and rely on their algal partners for ATP. This claim originated from an apparent lack of ATP9, a gene encoding one subunit of ATP synthase, from a few mitochondrial genomes. Here, we show that while these fungi indeed have lost the mitochondrial ATP9, each retain a nuclear copy of this gene. Our analysis reaffirms that lichen fungi produce their own ATP.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	4155-4159
Number of pages	5
Journal	Molecular ecology
Volume	30
Issue number	17
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16010
State	Published - Sep 2021

Keywords

ATP synthase
ATP9
gene loss
mitochondrial genome
symbiosis

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Genetics

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10.1111/mec.16010

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title = "Lichen fungi do not depend on the alga for ATP production: A comment on Pogoda et al. (2018)",

abstract = "Lichen fungi live in a symbiotic association with unicellular phototrophs and most have no known aposymbiotic stage. A recent study in Molecular Ecology postulated that some of them have lost mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and rely on their algal partners for ATP. This claim originated from an apparent lack of ATP9, a gene encoding one subunit of ATP synthase, from a few mitochondrial genomes. Here, we show that while these fungi indeed have lost the mitochondrial ATP9, each retain a nuclear copy of this gene. Our analysis reaffirms that lichen fungi produce their own ATP.",

keywords = "ATP synthase, ATP9, gene loss, mitochondrial genome, symbiosis",

author = "Gulnara Tagirdzhanova and McCutcheon, {John P.} and Toby Spribille",

note = "Funding Information: We thank the authors of Pogoda et al. ( 2018 ) for access to their data. We thank Jason Hollinger and Dylan Stover for providing specimens from which we sequenced metagenomes, and David D{\'i}az‐Escand{\'o}n and Sophie Dang for helping with laboratory work. GT and TS were supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant and a Canada Research Chair in Symbiosis. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd",

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AU - Spribille, Toby

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the authors of Pogoda et al. ( 2018 ) for access to their data. We thank Jason Hollinger and Dylan Stover for providing specimens from which we sequenced metagenomes, and David Díaz‐Escandón and Sophie Dang for helping with laboratory work. GT and TS were supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant and a Canada Research Chair in Symbiosis. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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AB - Lichen fungi live in a symbiotic association with unicellular phototrophs and most have no known aposymbiotic stage. A recent study in Molecular Ecology postulated that some of them have lost mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and rely on their algal partners for ATP. This claim originated from an apparent lack of ATP9, a gene encoding one subunit of ATP synthase, from a few mitochondrial genomes. Here, we show that while these fungi indeed have lost the mitochondrial ATP9, each retain a nuclear copy of this gene. Our analysis reaffirms that lichen fungi produce their own ATP.

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Lichen fungi do not depend on the alga for ATP production: A comment on Pogoda et al. (2018)

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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