A possible role of unique TCA cycles in wood-rotting basidiomycetes
IRG/WP 03-10461
E Munir, T Hattori, M Shimada
The copper tolerant brown-rot fungus, Fomitopsis palustris, acquires metabolic energy by use of the constitutively-occurring Kornberg’s glyoxylate cycle coordinating with oxalate biosynthesis and glucose oxidation (Erman Munir et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, (2001) 98, 11126-11130). Furthermore, this fungus does not have the normal TCA cycle, lacking 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase which is a key ezyme of the TCA cycle of most living things. This paper reports that most wood decay fungi tested lack 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase (ODH) and that much greater activities of glutamate dehydrogenase compensating the absence of ODH were detected from both white- and brown-rot fungi.