Keller, Turner, and Bennett (2005) - Fungal Secondary Metabolism

Keller, N. P., Turner, G., & Bennett, J. W. (2005). Fungal secondary metabolism—from biochemistry to genomics. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 3(12), 937-947.

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Nancy Keller, Geoffrey Turner, and Joan W. Bennett (2005) describe in their Nature Reviews article, "Fungal secondary metabolism - From biochemistry to genomics" that many fungal secondary metabolites remain to be described and understood, although several of the best-described chemicals have revolutionized fields such as medicine and agriculture. The authors first classify fungal secondary metabolites into classes of Peptides, Alkaloids, Terpenes, and Polyketides, and provide high-profile examples of each; they then discuss the role of gene clustering, transcriptional control over expression, and epigenetic modifications (e.g. LaeA methyltransferase) in production of these sometimes elusive compounds. The authors use this short review to outline the importance of fungal secondary metabolites to human society and a few developments in the process of in silico identification.

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Are secondary metabolic genes (and/or their clusters) located at the end of telomeres due to the fact that they can be lost before basic survival is affected? Placing genes here that may be lost without death could be a way to avoid loss of critical genes in "old age".

Perhaps read reference 70, which discusses the correlation between fungal development and secondary metabolite expression.

How does one use LaeA gene as a tool? Express this gene in other fungal organisms and see if different regions of heterochromatin are more accessible as converted to euchromatin? What concentrations of LaeA product are necessary to facilitate expression?