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Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms

Fungal hyphal growth and branching are essential traits that allow fungi to spread and proliferate in many environments. This sustained growth is essential for a myriad of applications in health, agriculture, and industry. However, comparisons between different fungi are difficult in the absence of...

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Autores principales: Hopke, Alex, Mela, Alex, Ellett, Felix, Carter-House, Derreck, Peña, Jesús F., Stajich, Jason E., Altamirano, Sophie, Lovett, Brian, Egan, Martin, Kale, Shiv, Kronholm, Ilkka, Guerette, Paul, Szewczyk, Edyta, McCluskey, Kevin, Breslauer, David, Shah, Hiral, Coad, Bryan R., Momany, Michelle, Irimia, Daniel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8480888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34587206
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257823
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author Hopke, Alex
Mela, Alex
Ellett, Felix
Carter-House, Derreck
Peña, Jesús F.
Stajich, Jason E.
Altamirano, Sophie
Lovett, Brian
Egan, Martin
Kale, Shiv
Kronholm, Ilkka
Guerette, Paul
Szewczyk, Edyta
McCluskey, Kevin
Breslauer, David
Shah, Hiral
Coad, Bryan R.
Momany, Michelle
Irimia, Daniel
author_facet Hopke, Alex
Mela, Alex
Ellett, Felix
Carter-House, Derreck
Peña, Jesús F.
Stajich, Jason E.
Altamirano, Sophie
Lovett, Brian
Egan, Martin
Kale, Shiv
Kronholm, Ilkka
Guerette, Paul
Szewczyk, Edyta
McCluskey, Kevin
Breslauer, David
Shah, Hiral
Coad, Bryan R.
Momany, Michelle
Irimia, Daniel
author_sort Hopke, Alex
collection PubMed
description Fungal hyphal growth and branching are essential traits that allow fungi to spread and proliferate in many environments. This sustained growth is essential for a myriad of applications in health, agriculture, and industry. However, comparisons between different fungi are difficult in the absence of standardized metrics. Here, we used a microfluidic device featuring four different maze patterns to compare the growth velocity and branching frequency of fourteen filamentous fungi. These measurements result from the collective work of several labs in the form of a competition named the “Fungus Olympics.” The competing fungi included five ascomycete species (ten strains total), two basidiomycete species, and two zygomycete species. We found that growth velocity within a straight channel varied from 1 to 4 μm/min. We also found that the time to complete mazes when fungal hyphae branched or turned at various angles did not correlate with linear growth velocity. We discovered that fungi in our study used one of two distinct strategies to traverse mazes: high-frequency branching in which all possible paths were explored, and low-frequency branching in which only one or two paths were explored. While the high-frequency branching helped fungi escape mazes with sharp turns faster, the low-frequency turning had a significant advantage in mazes with shallower turns. Future work will more systematically examine these trends.
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spelling pubmed-84808882021-09-30 Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms Hopke, Alex Mela, Alex Ellett, Felix Carter-House, Derreck Peña, Jesús F. Stajich, Jason E. Altamirano, Sophie Lovett, Brian Egan, Martin Kale, Shiv Kronholm, Ilkka Guerette, Paul Szewczyk, Edyta McCluskey, Kevin Breslauer, David Shah, Hiral Coad, Bryan R. Momany, Michelle Irimia, Daniel PLoS One Research Article Fungal hyphal growth and branching are essential traits that allow fungi to spread and proliferate in many environments. This sustained growth is essential for a myriad of applications in health, agriculture, and industry. However, comparisons between different fungi are difficult in the absence of standardized metrics. Here, we used a microfluidic device featuring four different maze patterns to compare the growth velocity and branching frequency of fourteen filamentous fungi. These measurements result from the collective work of several labs in the form of a competition named the “Fungus Olympics.” The competing fungi included five ascomycete species (ten strains total), two basidiomycete species, and two zygomycete species. We found that growth velocity within a straight channel varied from 1 to 4 μm/min. We also found that the time to complete mazes when fungal hyphae branched or turned at various angles did not correlate with linear growth velocity. We discovered that fungi in our study used one of two distinct strategies to traverse mazes: high-frequency branching in which all possible paths were explored, and low-frequency branching in which only one or two paths were explored. While the high-frequency branching helped fungi escape mazes with sharp turns faster, the low-frequency turning had a significant advantage in mazes with shallower turns. Future work will more systematically examine these trends. Public Library of Science 2021-09-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8480888/ /pubmed/34587206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257823 Text en © 2021 Hopke et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hopke, Alex
Mela, Alex
Ellett, Felix
Carter-House, Derreck
Peña, Jesús F.
Stajich, Jason E.
Altamirano, Sophie
Lovett, Brian
Egan, Martin
Kale, Shiv
Kronholm, Ilkka
Guerette, Paul
Szewczyk, Edyta
McCluskey, Kevin
Breslauer, David
Shah, Hiral
Coad, Bryan R.
Momany, Michelle
Irimia, Daniel
Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
title Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
title_full Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
title_fullStr Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
title_full_unstemmed Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
title_short Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
title_sort crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8480888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34587206
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257823
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