Cultural and cytological characterization of Dacryopinax primogenitus, a new species in the Dacrymycetes with a fully sequenced genome

Abstract

A Dacryopinax species that was cultured in Costa Rica and fruited in the laboratory provided DNA for the first sequenced genome for the Dacrymycetes. Here we characterize the isolate morphologically and cytologically and name it D. primogenitus. Molecular sequences from the nuclear large subunit gene and internal transcribed spacer indicated that it is closely related to the South American D. indacocheae with which it agrees structurally. Both species form conidia on the basidiocarp, and D. primogenitus also forms them on the mycelium. Unlike previous reports for the Dacrymycetales postmeiotic nuclear division results in uninucleate basidiospores and six residual nuclei in the basidium after basidiospore discharge. Ultrastructural analysis shows the characteristic septal-pore apparatus for the class and endogenous origin of the epibasidia/sterigmata, which may be a common occurrence in Dacrymycetes and the early diverging orders of its sister class, the Agaricomycetes.

• Basidiomycota
• basidium
• conidia
• development
• molecular phylogeny
• nucleus
• septal pore
• taxonomy
• ultrastructure

Acknowledgments

We thank the late Luis Diego Gomez for advice and guidance with fieldwork, Stacey Redeppening and Karen Clem for assistance with cultural and cytological examinations, the curator, Center for Mycological Research, Madison, Wisconsin, for a specimen loan, Gail Celio and University Imaging Centers, University of Minnesota, and Minnesota Supercomputing Institute for support of the AFTOL Structural and Biochemical Database development. This work was supported by NSF award DEB-0732550 to DJM as part of the Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life project.