Laboratory Overview

The State Key Laboratory of Mycology (SKLM), Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was founded in 1953. The research staff at SKLM focus on investigating fungal diversity at species and genetic levels, exploring the evolution of fungi using traditional and molecular techniques and various biological properties of fungi including their biocontrol effects, and discovering bioactive fungal metabolites. The major goal of SKLM is to establish various platforms for exploration and utilization of fungal cultures, genes, and bioactive metabolites, and to further explore some principles in the areas of life sciences.

Major Research Areas

·Diversity, molecular systematics and evolution of fungi
To explore biodiversity and ecological distributions of fungi; to explore the evolutionary relationships among fungi at different ranks based on the information of morphology, molecular biology, biogeography, physiology, biochemistry, and genetics; to establish DNA barcoding system for important fungi using multi-gene analyses and database construction.

·Fungal community and interaction
To gain insight into the structure and function of fungal communities using culture and non-culture techniques, especially in extreme environments, emphasizing species interaction at the molecular level.

·Fungal morphogenesis and molecular mechanism
To investigate the molecular mechanisms of fungal cell growth, development, and morphogenesis using comprehensive derived from techniques employed in multiple-disciplines including functional genomics, cell biology, genetics, biochemistry, and molecular biology.

·Fungal metabolism and regulation
To discover bioactive fungal metabolites using living strategy-based approach, and evaluate their potential as medicines and agrochemicals; to investigate the biosynthetic pathways of important metabolites for the production of structurally diversified metabolite libraries and through metabolic manipulations of the producing strains to improve the production of targeted compounds.