Anthony Deepak D’souza is a Ph.D student under Ramesh Maheshwari working on senescence in Neurospora.


Ramesh Maheshwari is a Professor at Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His research interests are fungal biology and genetics.

Fungi are non-photosynthetic, filamentous organisms (Box 1). The filaments or the hyphae are branched and divided into segments by transverse walls or septa. The growth of the hypha is restricted to its tip, which grows linearly by the apical addition of new cell wall material. The hyphal tip perpetuates itself as the mycelium spreads over the substrate. Consequently, a fungal mycelium is a system of hyphae designed for unlimited growth. This is best exemplified in a mushroom fungus whose mycelium spreads in the soil and produces fruiting bodies along the periphery of the subterranean mycelium. Such development of fruit bodies has been called a ‘fairy ring’ as it was thought that the ‘ring’ of mushrooms (see Figure 1) represented the area inside which the fairies danced! The diameter of the fairy ring enlarges as the mycelium extends radially and produces a new crop of fruit bodies (mushrooms) along the periphery. In some cases, the subterranean mycelium can occupy a very large area and can be several hundred years old. In North America, a colony of a basidiomycetes fungus, Armillaria bulbosa, which had spread to some ten acres in the forest soil was discovered. This colony was estimated to be some 1500 years old and can claim the record for the oldest and largest organism! Fungi can therefore be considered to be very long-lived organisms.

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Address for Correspondence
Anthony Deepak D’souza
&
Ramesh Maheshwari
Department of Biochemistry
Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore 560012, India.