Abstract
The construction of the Fungal Stress Database (FSD) was initiated and fueled by two major goals. At first, some outstandingly important groups of filamentous fungi including the aspergilli possess remarkable capabilities to adapt to a wide spectrum of environmental stress conditions but the underlying mechanisms of this stress tolerance have remained yet to be elucidated. Furthermore, the lack of any satisfactory interlaboratory standardization of stress assays, e.g. the widely used stress agar plate experiments, often hinders the direct comparison and discussion of stress physiological data gained for various fungal species by different research groups. In order to overcome these difficulties and to promote multilevel, e.g. combined comparative physiology-based and comparative genomics-based, stress research in filamentous fungi, we constructed FSD, which currently stores 1412 photos taken on Aspergillus colonies grown under precisely defined stress conditions. This study involved altogether 18 Aspergillus strains representing 17 species with two different strains for Aspergillus niger and covered six different stress conditions. Stress treatments were selected considering the frequency of various stress tolerance studies published in the last decade in the aspergilli and included oxidative (H2O2, menadione sodium bisulphite), high-osmolarity (NaCl, sorbitol), cell wall integrity (Congo Red) and heavy metal (CdCl2) stress exposures. In the future, we would like to expand this database to accommodate further fungal species and stress treatments.URL: http://www.fung-stress.org/
Highlights
The number of the versatile species belonging to the monophyletic kingdom Fungi may exceed 5 million as demonstrated by high-throughput sequencing of environmental DNA samples [1, 2]
We were highly motivated to set up the Fungal Stress Database (FSD; http://www.fung-stress.org/), where pictures of stress agar plate cultures performed with selected Aspergillus species have been made available to the public for the comparison of stress tolerance data gained in various laboratories and for further analyses
To stimulate further research in the field of fungal stress biology and to facilitate future interlaboratory standardizations of agar stress plate assays, the FSD was constructed, which currently stores almost 1.5 thousand photos on various Aspergillus colonies grown on well-defined stress agar media
Summary
The number of the versatile species belonging to the monophyletic kingdom Fungi may exceed 5 million as demonstrated by high-throughput sequencing of environmental DNA samples [1, 2]. 56.8% of the publications [298] reported on data gained in stress agar experiments as found by manual search of the literature available in the Web of ScienceVR database, and the total number of stress conditions tested in these assays was 362 (Figure 1, Supplementary Table S2). We were highly motivated to set up the Fungal Stress Database (FSD; http://www.fung-stress.org/), where pictures of stress agar plate cultures performed with selected Aspergillus species have been made available to the public for the comparison of stress tolerance data gained in various laboratories and for further analyses. A detailed description of the stress physiology experiments on nutrient stress agar plates is available at the FSD web site (click on ‘GROWTH MEDIA’ and choose the link shown under ‘Experimental conditions:’ or, alternatively, download http://www.fung-stress.org/Files/Experimental ConditionsDetailed.pdf) and in the paper of de Vries et al [18].
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