Anaerobic fungi occupy the rumen and digestive tract of herbivores, where they play an important role in enzymatic digestion of lignocellulosic and cellulosic substrates, i.e. organic material that their hosts are unable to decompose on their own. In this study we isolated anaerobic fungi from a typical alpine herbivore, the Alpine ibex (C. ibex). Three fungal strains, either as pure culture (ST2) or syntrophic co-culture with methanogens (ST3, ST4) were successfully obtained and morphologically characterised by different microscopy- and staining-techniques and by rDNA ITS gene sequencing. The isolated fungi were identified as Neocallimastix frontalis (ST2) and Caecomyces communis (ST3 and ST4). We introduce a novel field of application for lactofuchsin-staining, combined with confocal laser scanning microscopy. This approach proved as an effective method to visualize fungal structures, especially in the presence of plant biomass, generally exhibiting high autofluorescence. Moreover, we could demonstrate that fungal morphology is subject to changes depending on the carbon source used for cultivation. Oxygen tolerance was confirmed for both, C. communis-cultures for up to three, and for the N. frontalis-isolate for up to 12 h, respectively. With PCR, FISH and an oligonucleotide microarray we found associated methanogens (mainly Methanobacteriales) for C. communis, but not for N. frontalis.

• MeSH
• anaerobióza MeSH
• bachor mikrobiologie   MeSH
• DNA archebakterií genetika   MeSH
• DNA fungální genetika   MeSH
• feces mikrobiologie   MeSH
• fermentace MeSH
• fylogeneze MeSH
• konfokální mikroskopie MeSH
• kozy mikrobiologie   MeSH
• methan biosyntéza   MeSH
• Methanobacteriales klasifikace   genetika   izolace a purifikace   metabolismus   MeSH
• mezerníky ribozomální DNA genetika   MeSH
• Neocallimastigomycota klasifikace   genetika   izolace a purifikace   metabolismus   MeSH
• polymerázová řetězová reakce MeSH
• sekvenční analýza DNA MeSH
• symbióza fyziologie   MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Check Tag
• zvířata MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH