Genome sequence analysis of the fairy ring-forming fungus Lepista sordida and gene candidates for interaction with plants

Circular patterns called “fairy rings” in fields are a natural phenomenon that arises through the interaction between basidiomycete fungi and plants. Acceleration or inhibition of plant vegetative growth and the formation of mushroom fruiting bodies are both commonly observed when fairy rings form. The gene of an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of these regulators was recently isolated in the fairy ring-forming fungus, Lepista sordida. To identify other genes involved in L. sordida fairy ring formation, we used previously generated sequence data to produce a more complete draft genome sequence for this species. Finally, we predicted the metabolic pathways of the plant growth regulators and 29 candidate enzyme-coding genes involved in fairy-ring formation based on gene annotations. Comparisons of protein coding genes among basidiomycete fungi revealed two nitric oxide synthase gene candidates that were uniquely encoded in genomes of fairy ring-forming fungi. These results provide a basis for the discovery of genes involved in fairy ring formation and for understanding the mechanisms involved in the interaction between fungi and plants. We also constructed a new web database F-RINGS (http://bioinf.mind.meiji.ac.jp/f-rings/) to provide the comprehensive genomic information for L. sordida.