Characterization of marine fungi from the Brazilian coast

• Grant number: 25/04912-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Biology and Physiology of Microorganisms
• Principal Investigator: Lara Durães Sette
• Grantee: Vinicius Novaes Marques
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/12590-3 - Microbial biobanks: promoting innovations for scientific research and technological development (MicroBioBank), AP.TEM

Abstract

Microorganisms that inhabit little-explored and/or extreme ecological niches are potential sources for discovering new natural products with specific properties for biotechnological applications. The collection of marine fungi from the Brazilian coast at CRM-UNESP consists of approximately 600 isolates, some of which have not yet been identified. Because genetic diversity will be one of the selection criteria for the 1,000 microorganisms that will make up the extract library, obtaining and analyzing genetic profiles (fingerprinting) is one of the objectives of MicroBioBank. Thus, the microsatellite technique (MSP-PCR) will be applied from DNA extracted from approximately 300 filamentous fungi of marine origin from the Brazilian coast, which will also be grouped based on the morphotypes. Representatives of the different genetic profiles will be identified/authenticated through sequencing of taxonomic markers.