Resource Report

URL: http://www.aftol.org/

Proper Citation: AFTOL (RRID:SCR_004650)

Description: THIS RESOURCE IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE, documented Jan 13, 2022; To enhance the understanding of the evolution of the Kingdom Fungi, 1500+ species were sampled for eight gene loci across all major fungal clades, plus a subset of taxa for a suite of morphological and ultrastructural characters with resulting data: AFTOL Molecular Database (generated by WASABI - Web Accessible Sequence Analysis for Biological Inference), Blast search the AFTOL Database (generated by WASABI), AFTOL primers (generated by WASABI), AFTOL primers by species (generated by WASABI), AFTOL alignments, and the AFTOL Structural and Biochemical Database. Users may submit samples to the AFTOL project. AFTOL is a collaboration centered around four universities in the United States: Duke University (Francois Lutzoni and Rytas Vilgalys), Clark University (David Hibbett), Oregon State University (Joey Spatafora), and University of Minnesota (David McLaughlin). Participants throughout the world have donated vouchers, taxon samples, and gene sequences. The aim of the project is to reconstruct the fungal tree of life using all available data for eight loci (nuclear ribosomal DNA: LSU, SSU, ITS (including 5.8s, ITS1 and ITS2); RNA polymerase II: RPB1, RPB2; elongation factor 1-alpha; mitochondrial SSU rDNA, and mitochondrial ATP synthase protein subunit 6). A further objective of this study is to summarize and integrate current knowledge regarding fungal subcellular features within this new phylogenetic framework. The name of the bioinformatic package developed for AFTOL is WASABI which provides an efficient communication platform to facilitate the collection and dissemination of molecular data to (and from) the laboratories and participants. All molecular data can be viewed, downloaded, verified, and corrected by the participants of AFTOL. A central goal of the WASABI interface is to establish an automated analysis framework that includes basecalling of newly generated chromatograms, contig assembly, quality verification of sequences (including a local BLAST), sequence alignment, and congruence test. Gene sequences that pass all tests and are finally verified by their authors will undergo automated phylogenetic analysis on a regular schedule. Although all steps are initially carried out noninteractively, the users can verify and correct the results at any step and thus initiate the reanalysis of dependent data.

Abbreviations: AFTOL

Synonyms: Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life

Resource Type: biospecimen repository, material storage repository, service resource, storage service resource

Defining Citation: PMID:17486962, PMID:21652303

Keywords: cytology, morphology, phylogeny, ultrastructure, primer, alignment, blast, sequence, taxonomy, structure, biochemical, subcellular, organism-related portal, data analysis service, culture, sporocarp, dna, pcr product, molecular, molecule, gene sequence