Unravelling the button mushroom genome
International cooperation
A proposal to sequence the whole genome of the button mushroom was recently honoured by the Department for Energy in The United States of America. This will be carried out by the “Joint Genome Institute” in America.
This breakthrough has been achieved after the formation of an international consortium of button mushroom researchers. This consortium has drawn up a document that substantiates the importance of sequencing the genome of the button mushroom. The document argues that apart from the production of mushrooms, the button mushroom and other Agaricaceae are important for the degradation of plant material and may thus play a role in the production of biofuels. In addition, Agaricaceae can also convert substances that are difficult to degrade into less harmful substances or they may even be used to remove heavy metals from waste flows.

The challenge is still to come!
The work will probably be completed within three years (i.e. 2010) and we will then know the sequence of some 11 000 genes. And then the real work only starts because we do not yet know the function of most of the genes. The tools to determine this, however, are developed with high speed. Precisely the availability of the sequences enables utilization of these tools.
PRI Mushrooms will provide the genomic DNA of the cultivar Horst U1. It was the obvious choice to start with this cultivar because almost all current button mushroom cultivars originate from this cultivar.

The international consortium:
University of Warwick (UK), DOE Joint Genome Institute USA, University of Bristol (UK), USDA Research at the University of Wisconsin (USA), Southeast Missouri State University (USA), Clark University (USA), Sylvan Inc USA, Institut für Forstbotanik der Universität Göttingen (Germany), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (USA), Public University of Navarre (Spain), Penn State University (USA), Plant Research International Wageningen, and Utrecht University.