Department of Genetics, Evolution, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.
Center for Computing and Engineering Sciences, University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.
PeerJ. 2022 May 2;10:e13252. doi: 10.7717/peerj.13252. eCollection 2022.
plants present drought resistance mechanisms, commercial applications, and potential for bioenergy production. Currently, species are used to produce alcoholic beverages and sisal fibers in semi-arid regions, mainly in Mexico and Brazil. Because of their high productivities, low lignin content, and high shoot-to-root ratio, agaves show potential as biomass feedstock to bioenergy production in marginal areas. Plants host many microorganisms and understanding their metabolism can inform biotechnological purposes. Here, we identify and characterize fungal transcripts found in three fiber-producing agave cultivars (, , and hybrid 11648). We used leaf, stem, and root samples collected from the agave germplasm bank located in the state of Paraiba, in the Brazilian semiarid region, which has faced irregular precipitation periods. We used data from a assembled transcriptome assembly (all tissues together). Regardless of the cultivar, around 10% of the transcripts mapped to fungi. Surprisingly, most root-specific transcripts were fungal (58%); of these around 64% were identified as Ascomycota and 28% as Basidiomycota in the three communities. Transcripts that code for heat shock proteins (HSPs) and enzymes involved in transport across the membrane in Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, abounded in libraries generated from the three cultivars. Indeed, among the most expressed transcripts, many were annotated as HSPs, which appear involved in abiotic stress resistance. Most HSPs expressed by Ascomycota are small HSPs, highly related to dealing with temperature stresses. Also, some KEGG pathways suggest interaction with the roots, related to transport to outside the cell, such as (present in the three Ascomycota communities) and , which were further investigated. We also found chitinases among secreted CAZymes, that can be related to pathogen control. We anticipate that our results can provide a starting point to the study of the potential uses of agaves' fungi as biotechnological tools.
植物具有抗旱机制，可应用于商业领域，并且有潜力用于生物能源生产。目前，有种植物被用于在半干旱地区生产酒精饮料和剑麻纤维，主要是在墨西哥和巴西。由于其高生产力、低木质素含量和高茎根比，龙舌兰属植物显示出作为生物能源生产的生物质原料在边缘地区的潜力。植物宿主有许多微生物，了解它们的新陈代谢可以为生物技术目的提供信息。在这里，我们鉴定并描述了三种纤维生产型龙舌兰品种（、和杂种 11648）中发现的真菌转录本。我们使用了从位于巴西半干旱地区帕拉伊巴州的龙舌兰种质库中收集的叶片、茎和根样本，该地区经历了不规则的降水期。我们使用了组装的转录组数据（所有组织一起）。无论品种如何，约 10%的转录本映射到真菌。令人惊讶的是，大多数根特异性转录本是真菌（58%）；在这三个群落中，约 64%被鉴定为子囊菌门，28%被鉴定为担子菌门。编码热休克蛋白（HSPs）和跨膜运输相关酶的转录本在子囊菌门和担子菌门的文库中大量存在。事实上，在表达最多的转录本中，许多被注释为 HSPs，这些 HSPs似乎与抗非生物胁迫有关。子囊菌门中表达的大多数 HSPs 是小 HSPs，与应对温度胁迫高度相关。此外，一些 KEGG 途径表明与根系相互作用，与向细胞外的运输有关，如（存在于三个子囊菌社区中）和，进一步进行了研究。我们还在分泌的 CAZymes 中发现了几丁质酶，它们可能与病原体控制有关。我们预计，我们的研究结果可以为研究龙舌兰真菌作为生物技术工具的潜在用途提供一个起点。
