Figures
Mycosed insect cadavers.
Different species of entomopathogenic fungi are being developed as environmentally friendly insect biocontrol agents. The genus Metarhizium includes the well-studied species M. anisopliae, which is capable of killing more than 200 insect species including cockroaches (left) and the locust-specific pathogen M. acridum that only infects locusts (right) or grasshoppers. In this issue of PLoS Genetics, Gao et al. report the comparative genomic studies of these two fungal species and find extensive gene expansions in M. anisopliae that may facilitate its ability to cope with a diverse range of insect hosts.
Image Credit: Chengshu Wang and Yuxian Xia.
Citation: (2011) PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 7(1) January 2011. PLoS Genet 7(1): ev07.i01. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v07.i01
Published: January 27, 2011
Copyright: © 2011 Gao et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Different species of entomopathogenic fungi are being developed as environmentally friendly insect biocontrol agents. The genus Metarhizium includes the well-studied species M. anisopliae, which is capable of killing more than 200 insect species including cockroaches (left) and the locust-specific pathogen M. acridum that only infects locusts (right) or grasshoppers. In this issue of PLoS Genetics, Gao et al. report the comparative genomic studies of these two fungal species and find extensive gene expansions in M. anisopliae that may facilitate its ability to cope with a diverse range of insect hosts.
Image Credit: Chengshu Wang and Yuxian Xia.