Liebetanzomyces was the eleventh anaerobic fungal genus to be described. Liebetanzomyces is morphologically similar to Piromyces, Buwchfawromyces, Pecoramyces and Oontomyces due to it having a monocentric thallus and monoflagellated zoospores. In contrast, on the molecular level, Liebetanzomyces is similar to the polycentric genus Anaeromyces.
The genus Liebetanzomyces was named by Joshi et al in 2018 to honour Prof. Erwin Liebetanz for his great contribution to the field of anaerobic fungi. The type species is called L. polymorphus, highlighting the polymorphic sporangial shapes exhibited by this fungus. The type strain for the genus is G1SC, which was isolated from the rumen of a goat after an extended incubation period of 15 days. To date, no other species have been described for this genus.
According to previous culture-independent surveys, Liebetanzomyces is rarely distributed in nature and always present as a minor fraction of the total gut anaerobic fungal community. To date, L. polymorphus has been isolated from fecal samples of Watusi cow and wild Barbary sheep.
Morphology
Images are shown above of the Liebatanzomyces polymorphus type strain G1SC.
In liquid medium, Liebatanzomyces produces a biofilm-like growth that firmly attaches to the bottom of glass bottles (Image 1). On solid roll agar media, it forms medium to large circular colonies (Image 2).
Microscopically, Liebatanzomyces produces monoflagellated zoospores (Image 3). Zoospores germinate into young thalli (Image 4 & 5).
L. polymorphus has a monocentric thalli with sporangia of different shapes (Images 6-8).
Sequence Information
No sequenced genome is currently available for Liebatanzomyces. For the latest update regarding publically available genomes for this genus, please see here.
For the L. polymorphus strain G1SC, that is pictured above, sequence information is available in the NCBI database (accession number MH468765 for partial 18S, ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2 and partial 28S; accession number MH468763 for LSU sequence data)