Ustilaginales
TaxonUstilaginales
Authority(G. Winter 1880)[1] Bauer & Oberwinkler 1997[2]
Subdivision ranksFamilies
SubdivisionAnthracoideaceae
Clintamraceae
Geminaginaceae
Melanotaeniaceae
Pericladiaceae
Uleiellaceae
Ustilaginaceae
Websdaneaceae

The Ustilaginales are an order of fungi within the class Ustilaginomycetes. The order contained 8 families, 49 genera, and 851 species in 2008.[3]

In 2011, monotypic family Pericladiaceae holding just Pericladium (with 3 species) was added.[4] Also family Cintractiellaceae was later placed in a monotypic order Cintractiellales in 2020.[5]

Ustinaginales is also known and classified as the smut fungi. They are serious plant pathogens, with only the dikaryotic stage being obligately parasitic.

Morphology

Has a thick-walled resting spore (teliospore), known as the "brand" (burn) spore or chlamydospore.

Economic importance

They can infect corn plants (Zea mays) producing tumor-like galls that render the ears unsaleable. This corn smut, is also known as huitlacoche and sold canned for consumption in Latin America.

Sexual reproduction

Almost all Ustilaginales species share a dimorphic life cycle that includes an asexual, saprophitic yeast-like stage and a filamentous sexual stage that is required to parasitize a host.[6] The parasitic phase involves karyogamy, the process of fusing two haploid nuclei (present in haploid teliospore cells), followed by meiosis.[6] Each meiosis results in a septated basidium bearing four haploid basidiospores which can then proceed to yeast-like growth. During meiosis, genes are expressed that function in recombination and DNA repair.[6]

References

Notes
  1. ^ Winter G. (1880). Rabenhorsts Kryptogamen-Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich und der Schweitz, Vol. 1 (in German). Leipzig: E. Kummer. p. 73. (as "Ustilagineae")
  2. ^ Bauer, R. et al. (1997). "Ultrastructural markers and systematics in smut fungi and allied taxa.". Canadian Journal of Botany. 75 (8): 1311. Bibcode:1997CaJB...75.1273B. doi:10.1139/b97-842
  3. ^ Kirk MP, Cannon PF, Minter DW, Stalpers JA (2008). Dictionary of the Fungi. 10th ed. Wallingford: CABI. pp. 716–17. ISBN 978-0-85199-826-8.
  4. ^ Vánky, K. (2011). "The genus Pericladium (Ustilaginales). Pericladiaceae fam. nov.". Mycologia Balcanica. 8 (2): 147–152.
  5. ^ McTaggart, A.R.; Prychid, C.J.; Bruhl, J.J.; Shivas, R.G. (2020). "The PhyloCode applied to Cintractiellales, a new order of smut fungi with unresolved phylogenetic relationships in the Ustilaginomycotina.". Fungal Systematics and Evolution. 6: 55–64. doi:10.3114/fuse.2020.06.04. PMC 7451774. PMID 32904025
  6. ^ Steins L, Guerreiro MA, Duhamel M, Liu F, Wang QM, Boekhout T, Begerow D (June 2023). "Comparative genomics of smut fungi suggest the ability of meiosis and mating in asexual species of the genus Pseudozyma (Ustilaginales)". BMC Genomics. 24 (1): 321. doi:10.1186/s12864-023-09387-1. PMC 10262431. PMID 37312063
Bibliography
  • Alexopolous, C.J.; Mims, Charles W.; Blackwell, M. (2004). Introductory Mycology. 4th ed. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-52229-5. OCLC 33012821