The primary biotic decomposers of wood belong to the basidiomycetes. The members of this group can attack and biodegrade both wood in the forest and in service. By the time wood decay is visible, there has already been a significant loss of strength. The identification of basidiomycetes and other organisms on wood only tell us what is present, not what is actively decaying the wood. When organisms are metabolically active, such as during wood decay, they produce proteins, some of which are unique to the decay process. Detection and identification of the fungal proteins involved in wood biodegradation would be an advantage in helping to understand the complex biodegradation pathways. In this study, we concentrated on proteomics as a tool to decipher biodeterioration-linked proteins. Proteomic analysis of fresh wood (southern yellow pine), decayed wood, inoculated decayed wood, and Gloeophyllum trabeum were performed. More than 170 proteins from four treatments were visualized on Commassie-stained two-dimensional polyacrylamide gels with a high resolution and reproducibility. These protein spots were subjected to in-gel digestion with trypsin for peptide fingerprint analysis by MALDI-TOF-MS. The tryptic peptides were identified with the aid of a BLAST homology search which found 76 unique proteins from inoculated decayed wood. No proteins were detected from fresh wood. Over 110 proteins were visualized from Gloeophyllum trabeum grown in culture. Among the proteins identified were oxidative enzymes and hydrogen peroxidases. Only actin was identified from decayed wood, but inoculated decayed wood contained wood degradation proteins such as alcohol oxidase, lipoxygenase, and catalases.

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