Comprensión del estilo de vida liquenizado mediante la integración de datos genómicos y metabolómicos

Lichens are stable symbiotic associations between a fungus (mycobiont) and a green alga or cyanobacteria (photobiont), within whose thallus other organisms are embedded. The lichenization process, a crucial evolutionary milestone, has occurred several times in fungal evolution. However, it is still not fully understood. Interest in understanding the genomic basis of the different fungal lifestyles—saprotrophic, mycoparasitic, animal-pathogenic, mycorrhizal, etc.—is growing in mycology. Nevertheless, the lifestyle of lichenized fungi has been little explored, due in part to the limited number of available genomes of these fungi and their photobionts. The aim of this project is to study the genomic changes present in lichenized species by comparing their genomes with phylogenetically related species with different lifestyles. To achieve this objective, the genomes of fungal species belonging to the class Lecanoromycetes with lichenized, saprotrophic, and lichenicolous lifestyles will be sequenced and compared. Simultaneously, the genomes of algal species Trebouxiophiceae with different lifestyles will be sequenced and compared. Since genome size has been linked to different lifestyles in other fungal groups, this project will also study the genome size of Lecanoromycetes. Finally, the genomes of mycobionts and photobionts will be analyzed using a metabolic complementarity approach to better understand the relationships between symbionts and how they functionally complement each other.