1. Morphogenesis, physiology and genetics of development of fungal fruit bodies - plus some holiday snaps David Moore School of Biological Sciences The University of Manchester

2. Fungal mycelium has a number of alternative developmental pathways open to it continuation of hyphal growth production of asexual structures progress into the sexual cycle

3. These are not strict alternatives a culture may express all of these possibilities so, genetic control must be local

4. Classic genetic approaches are: identification of variant strains complementation tests to establish functional cistrons heterokaryons to determine dominance epistatic relationships in heterokaryons (to indicate the sequence of gene expression)

9. Normal morphogenesis is made up of developmental subroutines subroutines for hymenophore, hymenium, stem, cap, etc. subroutines can be put into operation independently of one another under separate genetic control under separate physiological control

10. Control of fungal morphogenesis Molecular models which might account for these features are: translational triggering feedback fixation

11. Translational triggering is a mechanism which can relate morphogenesis to physiological preparation (‘competence’), and to response to environmental signals

12. Translational triggering illumination temperature shock nutritional crisis injury edge encounter extracellular matrix signal other factors The ‘trigger’ might be caused by

13. Feedback fixation reinforces expression of the whole regulatory pathway to make it independent of the external environmental cues which initiated it results in developmental determination in the classic embryological sense

14. For the full story...

15. And now … the holiday snaps