Expression of phanerochaete chrysosporium genes encoding lignin peroxidases, manganese peroxidases, and glyoxal oxidase in wood

Abstract

Expression of Phanerochaete chrysosporium genes encoding ligninolytic enzymes was assessed in wood. Poly(A) RNA was extracted from colonized wood chips by magnetic capture, and specific transcripts were quantified by competitive reverse transcriptase PCR. mRNA levels varied substantially among lignin peroxidase genes, and transcript patterns were dramatically different from those in previous studies with defined media.

FIG. 1

Competitive PCRs comparing transcripts of three genes in samples collected after 2 and 8 weeks of incubation. Vertical arrows represent approximate equivalence points. Digitized images were acquired and labeled with Adobe Photoshop 3.0 and Illustrator 7.0, respectively. Numbers at right indicate molecular size in base pairs.

FIG. 2

Comparison of transcript levels of all known peroxidase and GLOX genes in aspen wood chip cultures after incubation for 2 or 8 weeks. Results are expressed as picograms of cDNA. The nomenclature for lip and mnp gene designations follows the work of Gaskell et al. (12) and Gettemy et al. (15), respectively.