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Lichen fungi do not depend on the alga for ATP production: A comment on Pogoda et al. (2018)
Author(s) -
Tagirdzhanova Gulnara,
McCutcheon John P.,
Spribille Toby
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
molecular ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.619
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1365-294X
pISSN - 0962-1083
DOI - 10.1111/mec.16010
Subject(s) - biology , lichen , phototroph , atp synthase , mitochondrial dna , gene , mitochondrion , nuclear gene , genome , oxidative phosphorylation , genetics , evolutionary biology , biochemistry , ecology , bacteria
Lichen fungi live in a symbiotic association with unicellular phototrophs and most have no known aposymbiotic stage. A recent study in Molecular Ecology postulated that some of them have lost mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and rely on their algal partners for ATP. This claim originated from an apparent lack of ATP9 , a gene encoding one subunit of ATP synthase, from a few mitochondrial genomes. Here, we show that while these fungi indeed have lost the mitochondrial ATP9 , each retain a nuclear copy of this gene. Our analysis reaffirms that lichen fungi produce their own ATP.