Fungi.guru : comparative genomic and transcriptomic resource for the fungi kingdom

• Main Authors: Lim, Jolyn Jia Jia, Koh, Jace, Moo, Jia Rong, Villanueva, Erielle Marie Fajardo, Putri, Dhira Anindya, Lim, Yuen Shan, Seetoh, Wei Song, Mulupuri, Sriya, Ng, Janice Wan Zhen, Nguyen, Nhi Le Uyen, Reji, Rinta, Foo, Herman, Zhao, Margaret Xuan, Chan, Tong Ling, Rodrigues, Edbert Edric, Kairon, Ryanjit Singh, Hee, Ker Min, Chee, Natasha Cassandra, Low, Ann Don, Chen, Zoe Hui Xin, Lim, Shan Chun, Lunardi, Vanessa, Fong, Tuck Choy, Chua, Cherlyn Xin'Er, Koh, Kenny Ting Sween, Julca, Irene, Delli-Ponti, Riccardo, Ng, Jonathan Wei Xiong, Mutwil, Marek
• Other Authors: School of Biological Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Science::Biological sciences; Fungi; Co-expression
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148595
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The fungi kingdom is composed of eukaryotic heterotrophs, which are responsible for balancing the ecosystem and play a major role as decomposers. They also produce a vast diversity of secondary metabolites, which have antibiotic or pharmacological properties. However, our lack of knowledge of gene function in fungi precludes us from tailoring them to our needs and tapping into their metabolic diversity. To help remedy this, we gathered genomic and gene expression data of 19 most widely-researched fungi to build an online tool, fungi.guru, which contains tools for cross-species identification of conserved pathways, functional gene modules, and gene families. We exemplify how our tool can elucidate the molecular function, biological process and cellular component of genes involved in various biological processes, by identifying a secondary metabolite pathway producing gliotoxin in Aspergillus fumigatus, the catabolic pathway of cellulose in Coprinopsis cinerea and the conserved DNA replication pathway in Fusarium graminearum and Pyricularia oryzae. The tool is available at www.fungi.guru.