fun fungal fact: the special case of brown-rot fungi

[eub]

http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/bto/microbes/armill.htm

Brown-rot fungi are unique, because they cause a very generalised rot which extends far beyond the fungal hyphae. This would be difficult to explain by the actions of "conventional" cellulase enzymes, and recent work suggests that the cellulase enzymes produced by these fungi have very little effect on cellulose in laboratory culture. Instead, the brown-rot fungi act by producing the enzyme glucose oxidase which generates hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) from glucose in the hemicelluloses. The H₂O₂ then oxidises cellulose and also modifies (but does not degrade) the lignin, leaving this as a brown framework. Being a small molecule, H₂O₂ can diffuse freely through the wood, causing generalised breakdown. In fact, the characteristic decay pattern caused by brown-rot fungi can be reproduced by treating wood with H₂O₂ alone.