Fungus

Fungi (Singular: fungus) are classified within their own kingdom - The Kingdom Fungi, while some are in The Kingdom Protista. A fungus is neither a plant nor an animal. It is similar to a plant, but it has no chlorophyll and cannot make its own food like a plant can through photosynthesis. They get their food by absorbing nutrients from their surroundings.

Kingdom Fungi includes mushrooms, rusts, smuts, puffballs, truffles, morels, molds, and yeasts, and thousands of other organisms and microorganisms. They range from microscopic single-celled organisms, such as yeast, to gigantic multicellular organisms.

 

Many fungi play a crucial role in decomposition (breaking things down) and returning nutrients to the soil. They are also used in medicine, an example is the antibiotic penicillin, as well as in industry and food preparation.

Mycology is the study of fungi - it is a branch of biology. A mycologist studies fungi's genes, biochemical properties, their use to us as a source of food, their hallucinogenic, poisonous and pathogenic (ability to cause disease) properties.

The “1000 Fungal Genomes” project will involve reading the DNA code of the genomes – inherited genetic information – of two species from every known family of fungi. There are an estimated one to 1.5 million species of fungi, with only about 100,000 species named. Approximately 200 of the 1,000 species that will be sequenced during the project are located at the Northern Research Station’s Center for Forest Mycology Research in Madison, Wisconsin. Scientists began the collection in 1932 and it now includes cultures from 1,600 species of fungi.

“It’s an incredible resource,” said Dan Lindner, a plant pathologist at the research center. “As far as we know, it’s the world’s largest collection of wood-inhabiting fungi. These organisms are so important in so many ways, and we have so much to learn about them.” Fungi are important to everything from carbon cycling to production of life-saving drugs such as penicillin, cholesterol-lowering statins, and immunosuppressants, which make organ transplants possible. Fungi are also used to make chocolate, beer and specialty cheeses, such as brie and gorgonzola. 

 

Examples

Panellus stipticus, one of over 70 species of bioluminescent fungi

The biochemistry of fungal bioluminescence - two-stage mechanism  -  In the first, a light-emitting substance (arbitrarily called "luciferin") is reduced by a soluble reductase enzyme at the expense of NAD(P)H. In the second stage, reduced luciferin is oxidized by an insoluble luciferase that releases the energy in the form of bluish-green light.

Mold is significant because it recycles nutrients from decaying organisms. Certain drugs, name penicillin, have also been created from molds and also citric acid and riboflavin.