This strain of Alternaria was isolated as a contaminant growing on the lid of a polystyrene petri plate at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Alternaria (phylum Ascomycota) is commonly known for its saprophytic, necrotrophic and allergenic qualities (Dang et al. 2015). They are well-known producers of secondary metabolites (Montemurro N et al. 1992). There have been a few reports on the ability of Alternaria to breakdown polyurethane (Magnin 2019, Matsumiya, et al. 2010), which has raised interest in using this fungi towards polyurethane recycling and upcycling. This isolate has been tested for growth on soluble polyurethane as a substrate. With the current interest in circular economy, this fungus could play an important role in gaining fundamental understanding of polyurethane metabolism in fungal systems.
This work was authored [in part] by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program at NREL. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government.
Researchers who wish to publish analyses using data from unpublished CSP genomes are respectfully required to contact the PI (Venkataramanan Subramanian, email: [email protected]) and JGI to avoid potential conflicts on data use.
References:
- Dang HX, Pryor B, Peever T, Lawrence CB. The Alternaria genomes database: a comprehensive resource for a fungal genus comprised of saprophytes, plant pathogens, and allergenic species. BMC Genomics. 2015 Mar 25;16(1):239.
- Montemurro N, Visconti A. Alternaria metabolites-chemical and biological data. Alternaria Biol Plant Dis Metab. 1992:449-57.
- Magnin A, Hoornaert L, Pollet E, Laurichesse S, Phalip V, Avérous L. Isolation and characterization of different promising fungi for biological waste management of polyurethanes. Microb Biotechnol. 2019 May;12(3):544-555.
- Matsumiya Y, Murata N, Tanabe E, Kubota K, Kubo M. Isolation and characterization of an ether-type polyurethane-degrading micro-organism and analysis of degradation mechanism by Alternaria sp. J Appl Microbiol. 2010 Jun;108(6):1946-53.
