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BARCODING THE VENICE FUNGAL COLLECTION
The University of California at Berkeley and the Venice Museum of Natural History in Italy are collaborating to catalog an entire museum collection using DNA
information. The project started in April 2006 and is expected to near completion by the end of 2007. The Venice Museum hosts the largest and best preserved fungal
collection in Italy with more than 25.000 samples, representing approximately 6,000 species of fungi. The collection includes many rare specimens and is hosted in a
Byzantine-style palace on the Grand Canal. Each species included in the Venice collection is currently being sampled and sent to U.C Berkeley in California, where a
portion of the genome is being sequenced and analyzed. The portion of the genome selected is known to have a unique DNA sequence for each different fungal species.
Because of this uniqueness, the resulting DNA database will allow to identify fungal species throughout the world. Fungi are microbes that can only be identified when
they produce fruiting bodies such as mushrooms; because mushrooms are only produced seasonally and sometimes very rarely, e.g. only once every several years, the
resulting database will allow to identify the fungi present in plants, in the soil, and in the air at all times, simply by comparing DNA information with the one
generated by this and other studies. DNA can be obtained by analyzing any portion of a fungus at any time, even plant or human tissue known to be infected by a fungus
can be used for DNA-based diagnosis.
Fungi are essential to most terrestrial ecosystems as they are major players in nutrient cycling. Nutrients are channeled by fungi in the soil and made available for the
growth of plants, including trees and agricultural crops. Many plants are dwarfed in the absence of fungi. A large number of fungi are also plant pathogens and cause
serious diseases of crops and forest trees, especially when transported to new areas of the world by the ever increasing international trade of goods and movement of
people. When exotic fungi are introduced in new areas, in fact, local plants are incapable of resisting infection, similar to what has historically happened to native
people who came in contact with human diseases carried by European colonizers. Finally, some fungi can cause serious human diseases ranging from pneumonia, to skin
infections, and allergic and asthmatic pathologies.
The U.C. Berkeley DNA database of the Venice collection will be made available to the public and research communities to enhance the ability to identify fungi in the
environment, even in the absence of those structures such as mushrooms or fruiting bodies that are traditionally needed for identification using classical approaches.
DNA-based classification will greatly aid the diagnosis of plant and human diseases and will allow to better research nutrient cycling and productivity of forests and
agricultural ecosystems. In the case of exotic plant diseases, DNA information may be used, as it is in criminal forensics or in paternity cases, to identify possible
culprits and to understand how they were introduced. In turn, this understanding provides governments with pivotal information needed to avoid repeated introductions of
pathogens. A further added benefit of the project will be to improve our understanding of evolutionary processes in the fungi, organisms that have been shown to be more
similar to animals than to plants.
The Venice collection is one of the first ones in the world to be entirely cataloged using DNA information. The ambitious project is made possible thanks to a
collaborative effort between the Museums of the City of Venice and the Forest Pathology and Mycology Laboratory of the College of Natural Resources at U.C. Berkeley. The
lead principal investigator is Dr. Matteo Garbelotto of Berkeley, aided by the Italian mycologist Giovanni Robich and by the vice-director of the Venice Museum of Natural
History, Dr. Luca Mizzan.
Links
Project Announcement
Barcode Case Study
Press Release 12/13/06
Research Update - Isolate Log
Research Update - Progress of DNA Analysis
Venice Museum of Natural History Website
Museum Herbarium Catalog
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