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Overview: Our laboratory conducts research on fungal systems, but also on the biochemical mechanisms that fungi use to cause disease or to deconstruct/decay lignocellulose biomass. The groups of fungi we work with employ unique, and very interesting, redox-cycling chemistries that allow these organisms to cause damage and/or initiate pathogenesis. Our research has also branched out into the study of the biochemical mechanisms that the fungi use - but in this work, we remove the organisms from the system but utilize our understanding of the biochemistries involved to mimic their action. This allows us  to study disease mechanisms more readily, or to develop "biomimetic" processes. One biomimetic process we are exploring in the lab now with an international consortium of colleagues is in the deconstruction of biomass for future "biorefinery" applications.  In other research in the biomedical realm, we are also exploring how related redox-cycling chemistries may promote neurodegenerative disease when these chemistries are triggered in specific organelles of the cell. 

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Background: Unique, Non-Enzymatic Extracellular Mechanisms in Fungi

Many groups have studied the enzymes and extracellular enzymatic action of fungi and other microorganisms. Our research group has interest in several enzymatic systems, but our primary focus is on non-enzymatic extracellular systems that some fungi employ, either alone, or in conjunction with enzymatic activities. Enzymes are large molecules that contain large amounts of nitrogen. From the physiological perspective, it is very expensive for an organism to produce and secrete enzymes extracellularly because those enzymes may not be readily recoverable by the organism. Some fungal organisms have evolved to produce a non-enzymatic redox-cycling system utilizing low molecular weight compounds that have the ability to perform simple catalytic chemistries that substitute for enzymatic action. One such catalytic chemistry is the generation of hydroxyl radicals (•OH) using what is know as a "chelator-medicated Fenton" (CMF) system. The (•OH) radical is the most potent oxidizing agent known in biological systems, and much of our research focusses on how fungi are able to generate these radical species "at a distance" from the fungal hyphae to cause diseaseor to degrade various substrates (ranging from wood to xenobiotic pollutants).  The (•OH) radicals must be generated far enough away from the fungus so that the fungal organism is not damaged, but by producing such a system that carries out the function of extracellular enzymes in other systems, we believe that physiological expense is greatly reduced, thus conferring an evolutionary advantage to fungi that use such systems.