Nematode-trapping fungi have been found to be natural killers of nematodes and their mechanisms might facilitate the development of new drugs or biological control agents, an Academia Sinica researcher said yesterday.
Mostly measuring less than 1mm, nematodes are found in soil worldwide and most are not visible to the naked eye, Academia Sinica Institute of Molecular Biology assistant research fellow Hsueh Yen-ping (薛雁冰) told a news conference in Taipei.
Some nematodes can cause infections in humans or damage plants, but existing pesticides, such as ivermectin, aldicarb and levamisole, can only inhibit their activity and the poisons’ efficacy are declining due to their wide use over the past few decades, she said.
Photo: CNA
Hsueh’s team found that oyster mushrooms, when starving, prey on nematodes by producing potent toxins that can paralyze them within minutes.
Using Caenorhabditis elegans as their model nematode, the team found that the fungal hyphae of oyster mushrooms trigger a massive calcium influx and rapid cell necrosis in the neuromuscular system of the nematode, making them more effective than nematicides, she said.
However, further research is needed to uncover the mushrooms’ key toxic compounds and if they might affect other creatures, she said.
The team detailed their findings in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US on March 17. The paper, authored by Academia Sinica researchers, was listed as one of the issue’s cover stories.
Another paper by Hsueh, published a week later in the same journal, investigated a different mechanism found in nematode-trapping fungi that she said are present in more than two-thirds of soil samples collected in Taiwan.
Such fungi prey on almost all nematodes by sensing their pheromones, producing fungal hyphae to capture and decompose them, she said.
Genetic and genomic tools were used in the study, which also involved researchers from Cornell University and the University of California, Riverside, she added.
Having studied nematodes since her postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology a decade ago, Hsueh said she has long been fascinated by the interactions between nematodes and other organisms.
While literature about nematodes is limited, studying nematodes is essential to understanding the biogeochemistry of soil, as some nematodes might be beneficial to the environment like earthworms are, she said.
The nematode-killing mechanisms in the two studies suggest new routes for targeting parasitic nematodes infection in humans, animals and agriculture, Hsueh said, expressing the hope that her team would develop new treatments and biocontrol methods from the mechanisms.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater