Fruiting-Body Development in Ascomycetes

Abstract

Fruiting bodies are multicellular structures that are developed during the sexual life cycle of filamentous ascomycetes and protect the products of meiosis. In this review, we will provide a general overview about the morphology and development of fruiting bodies. This includes an introduction into important model ascomycetes, which have extensively been studied at the molecular level. We will further mention environmental and endogenous factors that affect the development of complex fruiting bodies. Further, we will discuss regulatory networks such as signal transduction pathways, protein degradation mechanisms, as well as transcriptional regulators and chromatin modifiers. This review summarizes our mechanistic understanding of fruiting-body formation in filamentous ascomycetes, which is reminiscent of other complex eukaryotic developmental processes.