''Epichloë festucae'' is a systemic and seed-transmissible

endophytic An endophyte is an endosymbiont, often a bacterium or fungus, that lives within a plant for at least part of its life cycle without causing apparent disease. Endophytes are ubiquitous and have been found in all species of plants studied to date; h ...

fungus of cool season grasses. First described in 1994, ''Epichloë festucae'' is a sister lineage to '' Epichloë amarillans'', ''

Epichloë baconii ''Epichloë baconii'' is a haploid sexual species in the fungal genus ''Epichloë''. A systemic grass symbiont first described in 1993, ''Epichloë baconii'' is a sister lineage to '' Epichloë stromatolonga''. ''Epichloë baconii'' is found ...

'', '' Epichloë mollis'' and ''

Epichloë stromatolonga ''Epichloë stromatolonga'' is a haploid species in the fungal genus ''Epichloë''. A systemic and seed-transmissible grass symbiont first described in 2009, ''Epichloë stromatolonga'' is a sister lineage to '' Epichloë amarillans'', ''Epich ...

''. ''Epichloë festucae'' is found across North America, where it lives in the grass species ''

Bromus kalmii ''Bromus kalmii'', Kalm's brome, is a species of brome grass. It is a native bunchgrass in the North-central and Northeastern United States, the Great Lakes region, and eastern Canada. The specific epithet ''kalmii'' refers to its discoverer Peh ...

'' and ''Elymus'' spp. (including ''Elymus patula'').

Genome

The complete

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ge ...

sequence of ''Epichloë festucae'', the first complete genome sequence of any species in the genus ''

Epichloë ''Epichloë'' is a genus of ascomycete fungi forming an endophytic symbiosis with grasses. Grass choke disease is a symptom in grasses induced by some ''Epichloë'' species, which form spore-bearing mats ( stromata) on tillers and suppress t ...

'', was reported in 2018. The 35 Mb genome comprises 7 chromosomes, ranging from 3.2 to 7.8 Mb, including approximately 9,000 genes.

Centromeres

, although some

centromere The centromere links a pair of sister chromatids together during cell division. This constricted region of chromosome connects the sister chromatids, creating a short arm (p) and a long arm (q) on the chromatids. During mitosis, spindle fibers a ...

sequence data is available, full

annotation An annotation is extra information associated with a particular point in a document or other piece of information. It can be a note that includes a comment or explanation. Annotations are sometimes presented in the margin of book pages. For anno ...

of all

open reading frame In molecular biology, open reading frames (ORFs) are defined as spans of DNA sequence between the start and stop codons. Usually, this is considered within a studied region of a prokaryotic DNA sequence, where only one of the six possible readin ...

s is not. As a result a full taxonomic analysis is still not possible.

Varieties

''Epichloë festucae'' strains can have both a sexual reproductive morph (

teleomorph In mycology, the terms teleomorph, anamorph, and holomorph apply to portions of the life cycles of fungi in the phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota: *Teleomorph: the sexual reproductive stage (morph), typically a fruiting body. *Anamorph: an ase ...

) and an asexual reproductive morph (

anamorph In mycology, the terms teleomorph, anamorph, and holomorph apply to portions of the life cycles of fungi in the phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota: *Teleomorph: the sexual reproductive stage (morph), typically a fruiting body. *Anamorph: an ase ...

). For this group, the anamorph forms were long classified separately: initially in the genus ''

Acremonium ''Acremonium'' is a genus of fungi in the family Hypocreaceae. It used to be known as ''Cephalosporium''. Description ''Acremonium'' species are usually slow-growing and are initially compact and moist. Their hyphae are fine and hyaline, and pro ...

,'' and after 1996, in the new genus ''

Neotyphodium ''Neotyphodium'' is a genus of endophytic fungi symbiotic with grasses. It used to contain a number of asexually reproducing species that colonize the leaves of cool-season grasses, but most of them, including the type species '' N. coenophial ...

''. Since 2011, the

nomenclatural code Nomenclature codes or codes of nomenclature are the various rulebooks that govern biological taxonomic nomenclature, each in their own broad field of organisms. To an end-user who only deals with names of species, with some awareness that species ...

has required that a single name be used for all stages of development of a fungal species, and following a taxonomic revision of the genus ''Epichloë'' in 2014, the asexual forms of ''Epichloë festucae'' are now classified as ''Epichloë festucae'' var. ''lolii''. Found across Europe, Asia and North Africa, and introduced in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, Australia and elsewhere, ''Epichloë festucae'' var. ''lolii'' is associated with the grass species ''Lolium perenne'' subsp. ''perenne''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Epichloe festucae festucae Fungi described in 1994 Fungi of North America