‘Microbial physiology is gaining power through integrated studies’: physiology of yeasts and filamentous fungi III (PYFF-III), Helsinki, Finland, 13–16 June, 2007

Abstract

Over a period of three days, about 200 scientists from 32 different countries met at the Marina Congress Center in Helsinki to discuss and exchange their views and experiences on a classical but still very dynamic research field, ‘Physiology of yeasts and filamentous fungi’. There were 39 oral presentations from which 27 were selected from 140 abstracts by an international scientific committee. Overall, the balance between talks on yeasts and filamentous fungi shifted from c . 3/1 during the last PYFF-2 conference (Olsson, 2004, Anglet, France, 2004) to 2/1 in this meeting, and 30% of the abstracts were dealing with filamentous fungi. This indicates a clear inclination towards increasing research interests in these latter microorganisms. A likely reason for this may be that the genomes of several filamentous fungi genomes have been sequenced, which has highlighted the great biotechnological potential of these microorganisms. Themes set out at this 3rd conference, nicely organized by Drs Merja Pentilla and Markku Solaheimo from VTT, covered the present driving force in this field, from global genomic and functional analysis to biotechnological applications focused on proteins and metabolites production, with a detour on basic, though challenging topics on signaling, nutrient transport, stress responses and cellular energetics. In the session ‘Genomics and Functional analyses’, comparative genomics was shown to be a powerful tool to explore the complexity of biological systems and to provide testable hypothesis. For instance, comparative genome analysis of Aspergillus oryzae and other fungal species highlighted the occurrence of nonsynthetic blocks (NSBs) that turned out to be expressed specifically under conditions of solid-state cultivation (Machida, Japan). Also, a comparative analysis of protein-coding genes between the fungal phyla Pezizomycotina and Saccharomycotina predicted the former to be more suitable to produce secondary metabolites and to secrete enzymes (Arvas, Finland). Meta-analysis using T-profiler algorithm to GO-ontology …