Fungi and bacteria are nature's major decomposers recycling the organic matter in dead plants and animals. Fungi are therefore specialized in the production of a wide variety of secreted enzymes that degrade organic matter, particularly the complex polymers produced by photosynthetic plants, which are the world's most abundant source of carbon-based renewable energy. We are characterizing secreted enzymes produced by fungal saprophytes with the goal of identifying enzymes for several environmental and industrial applications. Research efforts directed at achieving this goal include (i) advancing our understanding of fungal protein secretion through gene deletion, conditional gene expression and transcriptome analysis (ii) developing plasmid vectors and host strains for the production of secreted proteins, and (iii) high throughput biochemical analysis and applications testing of fungal secretome proteins.
