Credit: Vincent Wu/JGI
New research shows the same proteins that enable human senses such as smell also allow certain fungi to sense something they can eat.
The UC Riverside study offers new avenues for protecting people from starvation due to pathogenic fungus-induced food shortages. Understanding how fungi sense and digest plants can also help scientists engineer fungal strains that are more efficient at producing biofuels.
Newly published by the American Society for Microbiology journal
mBio, the study details how fungi react to cellulose, the main component of plant cell walls. Humans and other animals lack the enzymes to digest cellulose, but fungi can convert it into glucose, a sugar that makes an excellent biofuel feedstock.
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New research shows the same proteins that enable human senses such as smell also allow certain fungi to sense something they can eat.
The UC Riverside study offers new avenues for protecting people from starvation due to pathogenic fungus-induced food shortages. Understanding how fungi sense and digest plants can also help scientists engineer fungal strains that are more efficient at producing biofuels.
Newly published by the American Society for Microbiology journal
mBio, the study details how fungi react to cellulose, the main component of plant cell walls. Humans and other animals lack the enzymes to digest cellulose, but fungi can convert it into glucose, a sugar that makes an excellent biofuel feedstock.