Chytrid Fungi

In recent years it has become clear that there are not only mitochondria that function as described in biochemical textbooks, but that many different types of mitochondria exist, which exhibit a large variety in metabolic properties (Tielens et al. 2002). It is now also clear that the same holds true for hydrogenosomes. Firstly, there are obvious metabolic differences between the hydrogenosomes of Trichomonads and those of chytrid fungi and of anaerobic ciliates. Secondly, substantial differences in metabolism also exist within the large community of anaerobic ciliates (Fig. 3,4, and 5). 

Akhmanova A, Voncken FGJ, Hosea KM, Harhangi H, Keltjens JT, den Camp HJMO, Vogels GD, Hackstein JHP (1999) A hydrogenosome with pyruvate formate-lyase anaerobic chytrid fungi use an alternative route for pyruvate catabolism. Mol Microbiol 32 1103-1114... 

Chytrid fungi 1 H Neocallimastix Hsp70, Cpn60, AAC PFL, hydrogenase No... 

Fig. 10.3). Thus, anaerobic chytrid fungi have secondarily lost their aerobic mitochondrial function in adaptation to their anaerobic life style.

I— Ordovician millipedes Ordovician mosses r S Devonian chytrid fungi Devonian trees and swamps L-i Triassic sauropods and termites jlretaceous angiosperms Cretaceous omithopods Oligocene grasslands mill 11... 

Lettuce plants have been shown to become infected with big-vein virus when their roots become parasitized by zoospores of Olpidium brassicae released from the roots of infected lettuce plants. Presumably, according to Cadman (1965), the zoospores carry the virus internally and the evidence suggests that the virus survives within resting sporangia, even when they are stored dry. Other soil-borne viruses are undoubtedly transmitted in a similar manner by chytrid fungi but positive proof of this is not yet available. These viruses that are transmitted by chytrid fungi are not, so far as known, seed-borne in their hosts. 

The fungal population of soils constitutes a very heterogeneous group of organisms. The fungi known to occur in the soil cover the range from chytrids to agarics, from saprophytes to root parasites, and from parasites of amoebae to parasites of man [9]. 

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