The genetic diversity and ecology of the rumen anaerobic fungi of ruminant animals: past, present and future

Subject Areas : Mycology

Ali Khodaei ¹ , Mehdi Arzanloo ² , Asadollah Babai Ahari ³ , Mohammad Hossein Afsarian ⁴ , Hamid Badali ⁵

1 - Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
2 - Associate Professor, Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
3 - Professor, Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
4 - Lecturer, Department of Medical Microbiology, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran.
5 - Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Mycology & Parasitology, Invasive Fungi Research Center, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.

Received: 2013-08-01 Accepted : 2013-10-02 Published : 2014-03-01

Keywords: phylogeny, Neocallimastigomycota, Monophyletic, Rumen fungi,

Abstract :

Background and Objectives: In 1910 scientist notified the existence of fungi in rumen. Based on chitin content in their cell wall, they were classified as true fungi referred to as Neocallimastix frontalis. Based on morphological characters such as number of flagellates in zoospore, rhizomycelium, shape of sporangium, ultra structural of zoospore and nucleotide sequences data, these fungi are recently classified into two monocentric and polycentric groups, consisting of six genera. Materials and Methods: In the present study, literature search was performed based on search of MeSH keywords, such as phylogeny, monophyletic, Neocallimastigomycota, rumen fungi, in several online research tools, such as Pubmed Medline, Scopus, Google scholar, Elsevier databases, Irandoc, Iranmedex, Magiran, SID and MEDLIB limited to the articles published between 1992 to 2013. Results: Different characterises of these fungi such as life cycle, reproductive structures, vegetative thallus and molecular data revealed phytogenic relationship of rumen fungi to the members of Chytridiomycota. Phylogenetic analysis of these fungi and their relatives with other eukaryotes using 18S rDNA sequence data, analyses of structural data and the G+C content showed that this fungi are monophyletic organisms. Conclusion: The investigations on inhibitors and their roles in the interactions between fungi and bacteria can be useful to understand the microbial ecosystem of the rumen. Detection of these factors can be used to determine new ecologic relationships in the rumen. Furthermore, detection of the inhibitors of bacterial activity in the rumen can be used to increase the activity of fungi on plant fibres in this ecologic community.