Fungal survival under temperature stress: a proteomic perspective

PeerJ. 2020 Dec 15:8:e10423. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10423. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Background: Increases in knowledge of climate change generally, and its impact on agricultural industries specifically, have led to a greater research effort aimed at improving understanding of the role of fungi in various fields. Fungi play a key role in soil ecosystems as the primary agent of decomposition, recycling of organic nutrients. Fungi also include important pathogens of plants, insects, bacteria, domestic animals and humans, thus highlighting their importance in many contexts. Temperature directly affects fungal growth and protein dynamics, which ultimately will cascade through to affect crop performance. To study changes in the global protein complement of fungi, proteomic approaches have been used to examine links between temperature stress and fungal proteomic profiles.

Survey methodology and objectives: A traditional rather than a systematic review approach was taken to focus on fungal responses to temperature stress elucidated using proteomic approaches. The effects of temperature stress on fungal metabolic pathways and, in particular, heat shock proteins (HSPs) are discussed. The objective of this review is to provide an overview of the effects of temperature stress on fungal proteomes.

Concluding remarks: Elucidating fungal proteomic response under temperature stress is useful in the context of increasing understanding of fungal sensitivity and resilience to the challenges posed by contemporary climate change processes. Although useful, a more thorough work is needed such as combining data from multiple -omics platforms in order to develop deeper understanding of the factor influencing and controlling cell physiology. This information can be beneficial to identify potential biomarkers for monitoring environmental changes in soil, including the agricultural ecosystems vital to human society and economy.

Keywords: Climate change issue; Fungal proteomes; Proteomic approach; Temperature stress.

Grants and funding

The study was supported by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) through their funding programme Higher Centre of Excellence (HiCoE) (grant number IOES-2014G), and the Universiti Malaya Research Programme (UMRP) (grant number RP026A-18SUS), the University of Malaya (UM) (OCAR TNC(P&I) 2011 Account No. (A−55001−DA000−B21520), and a postgraduate sponsorship from the Majlis Amanah Rakyat Malaysia (MARA Scholarship Programme). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.