Background
Fungi have been used for a very long time for dietary, medical, and divinatory purposes. The Egyptians used them as leaven, the Romans as poisons to eliminate their enemies, and the Aztecs as hallucinogenic and divinatory drugs. As early as the 5th century BC, the Chinese understood the potential of mushrooms as remedies in the form of decoctions, alicaments (therapeutic foods), or other preparations, and their use was recorded in an age-old work, passing from one emperor to another. For centuries, fungi have aroused curiosity. However, they were studied and considered as inferior plants, without flowers, without leaves, appearing by magic during rainy weather. Indeed, until the 16th century, fungi were thought to appear spontaneously from the frost resulting from the decomposition of tree leaves. Even after the invention of the microscope, from the beginning of the 18th century, renowned mycologists and scientists such as Pier Antonio Micheli and Robert Hooke observed fungi and described them with great precision, but maintained that they belonged to the lower plants, a very small part of botany. It was not until the 19th century that the science of fungi was given a decisive boost, taking the name of mycology. At that time, people stopped believing in the spontaneous generation of fungi and began to distinguish them from plants. Rich and detailed monographs were published, involving the great names of mycological research, such as Fries, Persoon, De Bary, Saccardo, and many others, right up to Professor Heinz Clémençon, who devoted so many years to their study, emphasising their singularity. It was not until 1969 that Whittaker made fungi a group of their own rights, and the fungi attained the rank of a kingdom.
The development of technology, particularly DNA sequencing, has opened up new fields of study and made it possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of living beings, including fungi, whose classification has undergone constant reworking up to the present day. As is often the case in science, the certainties of one day are overturned by the knowledge that new technologies allow. The classification of fungi, which is already very complex due to their genetic modification and permanent mutation, is now being challenged by classifications based on whole genomes. The complexity of the fungal kingdom is a real asset, a surprising potential at the heart of contemporary biological research with its increasingly sophisticated tools, electronic microscopy, and the creation of networks of expertise enabling these organisms to be exploited in the most varied disciplines, such as medicine, crop protection, fermentations, biotechnological food, heavy metal filters, colourings, and flavourings, to name but a few examples.
Mycoscope: The collection and projects
For more than fifty years, the Mycology Group of Agroscope has built up and maintained a large and dynamic collection of fungi, around 3,200 strains to date. The group has strong expertise in the isolation and purification of fungal strains from a wide range of substrates, including phytopathogenic fungi, environmental species (air, rainwater, everyday materials, silt, extreme environments, forests, composts, foods), medical species (dermatopathogens, endopathogens), and those from exotic fungal communities. Historically focused on the epidemiological understanding of host-pathogen interactions, this collection is now widely used for the discovery of new chemistry, such as bioactive compounds of agronomic and medical interest, flavours, and even dyes. The identification of all strains is validated by molecular sequencing. New strains are regularly added to the mycology library. The dynamic fungal library of the research group has become a flagship for complex fungal communities and their evolution over time by molecular phylogeny, the isolation of specific fungal enzymes and/or enzyme families for chemical diversity generation, and the screening of bioactive compounds.
(This fungal library is an important indicator of Swiss fungal biodiversity. It also represents a fundamental tool for research. Given the importance of this collection of living strains, the Mycology Group of Agroscope has developed an interactive database on the web www.mycoscope.ch) to make the strains available to the scientific community and to allow scientific exchanges and collaborative synergies on a national and international scale. Using this tool, users can search for the species they need, as well as the ITS sequences and culture images referring to them.
