Abstract
ABSTRACTFungi grow by apical extension of their hyphae. The continuous growth requires constant delivery of vesicles, which fuse with the membrane and secrete cell wall biosynthesis enzymes. The growth mechanism requires the fungal cytoskeleton and turgor pressure. In a recent study by Fukuda et al. (mBio 12:e03196-20, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.03196-20), hyphal growth was studied in microfluidic devices with channels smaller than the hyphal diameter. The authors discovered that fast-growing fungi like Neurospora crassa enter the channels, but hyphal tips become fragile and rupture frequently, whereas slower-growing fungi like Aspergillus nidulans adapt their hyphal diameter and grow without problems through the channels. This study suggests two different growth mechanisms and a tradeoff between hyphal plasticity and growth speed.
Highlights
Polarity is a common theme in biology
In the slowest-growing fungus used in this study, Aspergillus nidulans, which just adapted its hyphal diameter and grew through the channels without any difficulty, the microtubule and the actin cytoskeleton are dynamic and very coordinated
Microtubules grow toward the hyphal apex and deliver so-called cell-end marker proteins to maintain polarity [1, 8]. They act as tracks for secretory vesicles, which deliver enzymes for cell wall biosynthesis, but some of them deliver a prenylated cell-end marker protein [9]
Summary
Polarity is a common theme in biology. Bona fide examples are the pollen tubes and root hairs in plants, protonema cells in mosses, neurons in animals, and hyphae in filamentous fungi [1]. One group of fungi continued growth after exiting the narrow channel in a normal way with tube-like hyphae. The key to understanding this interesting difference may be the arrangement of the cytoskeleton and the mode of growth in slow- and in fast-growing fungi (Fig. 1).
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