Frontiers in fungal biology最新文献

{"title":"Transcriptomic analysis of <i>Hericium erinaceus</i> mycelia at distinct growth stages: insights into molecular mechanisms underlying mycelial proliferation.","authors":"Hailong Zong, Yuhan Duan, Xiaolei Li, Hongchun Bao","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1778644","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1778644","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Hericium erinaceus</i>, a highly valued edible fungus, is among the most widely consumed mushrooms globally, attributed to its superior nutritional composition and delicate organoleptic properties. Extensive prior studies have consistently shown that the yield of mature <i>H. erinaceus</i> fruiting bodies is tightly linked to mycelial growth status. Mycelia serve as the essential vegetative structure that supports nutrient acquisition and subsequent reproductive development. To decipher the molecular mechanisms regulating <i>H. erinaceus</i> mycelial growth, transcriptome profiling was conducted on mycelial samples from strains with divergent growth rates, harvested at distinct growth stages. Transcriptomic analysis identified 3,257 DEGs across the two genotypic groups. Notably, upregulated DEGs outnumbered downregulated ones significantly, indicating a predominantly activated transcriptional program during mycelial growth. GO functional annotation revealed these DEGs were primarily enriched in terms related to oxidoreductase activity, which is an enzymatic function critical for mediating redox reactions in energy metabolism and secondary metabolite biosynthesis. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis further showed that most DEGs were concentrated in amino acid metabolism pathways, including arginine and proline metabolism, phenylalanine metabolism, and tryptophan metabolism. These pathways are pivotal for supplying essential nitrogen sources, regulating cellular osmotic balance, and synthesizing bioactive molecules that support mycelial proliferation. Collectively, this study generates comprehensive transcriptomic data for <i>H. erinaceus</i> mycelia, which not only offer valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms driving mycelial growth but also facilitate the identification of key candidate genes regulating mycelial development. These findings establish a robust theoretical basis for optimizing stable large-scale cultivation of <i>H. erinaceus</i> and advancing molecular-assisted breeding to improve its agronomic traits.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1778644"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13529743/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148876436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mechanistic evidence and assumptions in mycotoxin-gut interaction.","authors":"Esther Garcia-Cela, Alessandra Marcon Gasperini","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1855881","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1855881","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mycotoxins are increasingly recognised as ecological mediators that act through a bidirectional gut-microbiota axis. Microbial metabolism governs toxin fate by driving detoxification, bioactivation, sequestration and deconjugation, whereas mycotoxin exposure reshapes microbial communities, disrupts epithelial barrier function and amplifies immune signalling. Across aflatoxin B1, ochratoxin A, fumonisin B1, deoxynivalenol and T-2 toxin, the microbiome emerges as both a determinant and a target of toxicity, with strain-level functional diversity influencing susceptibility, detoxification capacity and host outcome. A further consequence of chronic exposure may be selection for pathobionts and antibiotic-resistant populations, raising the possibility that mycotoxins contribute to microbiome instability beyond direct toxic effects. Despite these advances, most evidence remains correlative or model-specific, and causal validation <i>in vivo</i> is still limited. Integrating microbiology, metabolomics, epithelial biology and ecological theory is essential to understand these interactions and to better guide microbiome-informed strategies for mycotoxin exposure mitigation.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1855881"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13527017/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148867653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unravelling soil fungal communities in dumpsites in Kabale, Western Uganda using culturomics.","authors":"Adeyinka Odebode, Stephane Ranque","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1823753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/ffunb.2026.1823753","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Inadequate waste disposal systems have long been a perennial problem, with no clearly safe solution in sight in most developing countries. Dumpsites harbor microbial pathogens in the soil ecosystem that can cause disease outbreaks upon their seepage into the water bodies. However, there is a paucity of investigation on the diversity of fungi in dumpsites in Uganda. Hence, this research aims at evaluating the diversity and distribution patterns of fungi associated with top soils from fifteen different dumpsites in Kabale, South west, Uganda. Culturomics approach was employed in this investigation. Isolation of the fungal species was done using five different culture media, i.e., Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA), Malt Extract Agar (MEA), ChromAgar (CA), FastFung (FF), and Saboraud Dextrose Agar (SDA). Fungal isolation was carried out using the soil dilution plate technique. ITS rRNA gene sequencing was used to identify purified isolates. FF emerged as the most effective agar, yielding the highest number of fungal isolates, followed by PDA, MEA, CA, and SDA. In all, 54 different isolates were obtained. <i>Trichoderma, Fusarium</i>, and <i>Aspergillus</i> sp were the most prevalent. Also, pathogenic and opportunistic fungi such as <i>Simplicillium lamellicola, Mortierella multispora</i>, and <i>Torulaspora delbrueckii</i> were isolated. All <i>Aspergillus</i> isolates were further screened for azole-resistance (itraconazole, voriconazole, posaconazole, and Amphotericin B). Results showed most <i>Aspergillus</i> species have lower MIC; however, <i>A. clavatus</i> had an MIC of 1.5 ug/mL. This work further emphasizes the need for regular monitoring of dumpsites for fungi, which can be of public health concern.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1823753"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13490154/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148802521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correction: Optimal substrate composition (C, N, and trace metals) for liquid culture of <i>Akanthomyces attenuatus</i> JEF 147 isolate.","authors":"Muhammad Farooq, Dan-Dan Zhao, Waqar Ahmad, Zakirullah Khan, Rahmatullah Jan, Bo-Seong Seo, Yonghwa Lee, Kyung-Min Kim","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1926693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/ffunb.2026.1926693","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/ffunb.2026.1818832.].</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1926693"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13461015/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148714896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"AgriFusionNet: a context-aware multimodal leaf disease diagnosis and classification system for sustainable plant health monitoring.","authors":"Vanmathi C, Nischitha N Shetty, Mangayarkarasi Ramaiah, Selvamuthukumaran T, Sowbiya Muneer, Vijayalakshmi Shankar","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1779786","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1779786","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Early and accurate identification of plant diseases is essential for improving crop productivity and ensuring food security. Many existing deep learning-based plant disease classification methods rely solely on leaf images collected from a controlled environment, which limits their applicability in real-world agricultural conditions where symptoms may be visually unclear and influenced by environmental factors. To address these challenges, this study discusses AgriFusionNet, a context-aware multimodal deep learning framework that integrates leaf images, textual symptom descriptions, and environmental data for robust plant disease classification. The proposed architecture employs EfficientNet-B0 for visual feature extraction, BERT for semantic representation of symptom descriptions, and a lightweight multilayer perceptron for modeling environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, and soil moisture. Features from all three modalities are fused into a unified representation to train the CNN model. The model is trained and tested upon the Context-Aware Multimodal Augmented PlantVillage dataset covering 38 plant diseases and healthy classes. Experimental results show that AgriFusionNet gives an overall accuracy of 98.94% on the dataset Context-Aware Multimodal Augmented PlantVillage, with competitive precision and recall and F1-score. The multimodal framework facilitates the co-learning of visual, semantic, and contextual environmental representations and the analyses of the confusion matrix and feature interactions give insights into cross-modal relationships. The proposed approach aims to explore context-aware multimodal representation learning for agricultural AI applications, with emphasis on integrating complementary visual, semantic, and contextual information.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1779786"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13454809/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148708603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Global trends, translational gaps, and emerging research directions in <i>Pleurotus</i> spp. bioactivity research: a 25-year scientometric analysis.","authors":"Kevin Smith P Cabuhat, Jamil Allen G Fortaleza, Johnalie N Cabalbag, Christian Joseph N Ong, Jowi Tsidkenu Pili Cruz, Nicole Rajah C Del Rosario, Mary Ylane S Lee, Jose Jurel M Nuevo, Joel G Matamis, Jose Edwardo R Mamaat, Amelda C Libres, Rich Milton R Dulay","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1853358","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1853358","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong><i>Pleurotus</i> spp. have attracted significant scientific interest for their diverse bioactive compounds and broad pharmacological potential. Despite the rapid growth of the literature, a comprehensive scientometric synthesis of this research landscape remains limited.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This study used a systematic scientometric approach to analyze global research trends in <i>Pleurotus</i> bioactivity from 2000 to 2025. Key analyses included publication productivity, citation dynamics, co-authorship and country-level collaboration networks, keyword co-occurrence mapping, and thematic evolution.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The results reveal relatively stable publication output accompanied by a marked increase in citation impact after 2012, indicating growing intellectual consolidation and global recognition of the field. China and India dominate research productivity, whereas citation influence is more widely distributed, highlighting disparities between output and impact. Thematic evolution shows a shift from early studies on cultivation and compositional profiling toward advanced research in molecular bioactivity, gut microbiota modulation, enzymatic biotechnology, and circular bioeconomy applications. Emerging directions include precision nutraceutical development, optimization of extraction and fermentation processes, and agro-industrial waste valorization. Despite increasing interdisciplinary integration and strong preclinical evidence, collaboration networks remain partially fragmented, and translation into clinical and industrial applications remains limited.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>These findings indicate that while research on <i>Pleurotus</i> has reached a stage of disciplinary maturity, significant gaps persist in standardization, clinical validation, and scalability. Addressing these challenges will require integrative omics approaches, strengthened global collaboration, and translational frameworks to bridge the gap between laboratory discoveries and real-world applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1853358"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13454808/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148708679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Selenium-enriched <i>Lentinus edodes</i>: characterization and antidiabetic effects in Wistar rats.","authors":"Ivan Milovanovic, Walter Goessler, Saša Vukmirović, Ivan Čapo, Nebojša Stilinović","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1866421","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1866421","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong><i>Lentinus edodes</i> is the second most widely cultivated edible mushroom globally. This study aimed to enrich <i>L. edodes</i> with selenium, quantify total selenium and its species, and evaluate the <i>in vivo</i> antidiabetic activity of selenium-enriched extracts using Wistar rats as the model organism.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The experiment involved healthy male Wistar strain laboratory rats, divided into 8 groups. Along with general health status, the animals' body weight, blood glucose levels and lipid concentrations as well as selenoprotein P1 and glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPx-1) expression were monitored during the experiment.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The highest selenium accumulation was observed in the first flushes, reaching 90.4 ± 9.0 mg Se kg^-1. Selenomethionine (Se-Met) was identified as the sole selenium species in both aqueous and enzymatic extracts. The findings reveal subtle variations in the physiological effects of <i>L. edodes</i> harvested at different times, particularly regarding body weight, blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels, as well as pancreatic tissue health and the expression of selenoprotein P1 and GPx-1 in rats. Selenium-enriched <i>L. edodes</i> extracts exhibited notable antidiabetic properties, especially in regulating blood glucose and preserving pancreatic β-cell structure in an alloxan-induced diabetes model. A significant positive correlation was found between selenoprotein P1 levels and total cholesterol (ρ = 0.622; p < 0.001).</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>The findings of this study provide a basis for monitoring the quality and reproducibility of the selenium fortification process. Furthermore, these results suggest that further investigation in additional animal models is warranted to confirm the broader applicability and robustness of this approach.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1866421"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13444522/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148686916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hydrogen peroxide as a multifaceted regulator of the Atg4 protease and autophagy in the pathogenic fungus <i>Alternaria alternata</i>.","authors":"Hsin-Yu Lu, Je-Jia Wu, Celine Yen Ling Choo, Pei-Ching Wu, Kuang-Ren Chung","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1881957","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1881957","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Autophagy-related protease AaAtg4 was previously identified as a key regulator in the pathogenic fungus <i>Alternaria alternata</i>, orchestrating a complex interplay among autophagy, oxidative stress resistance, iron homeostasis, and ACT toxin biosynthesis. The underlying mechanisms of AaAtg4 in relation to oxidative stress response remain unknown.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Genetic and biochemical analyses.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this study, we examined the effect of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) on AaAtg4. Functioning as a cysteine protease, AaAtg4 directly interacts with the AaAtg8 ubiquitin-like protein and is indispensable for AaAtg8 processing and autophagosome formation, with its enzymatic activity modulated by oxidative cues. H₂O₂ differentially impacts AaAtg4 activity, phosphorylation, binding with AaAtg8, AaAtg8 lipidation/delipidation, and autophagy. H₂O₂ has biphasic effects on AaAtg4. Moderate H₂O₂ levels enhance AaAtg4 activity and autophagy, whereas excessive H₂O₂ suppresses both, revealing a threshold-dependent redox regulation. Furthermore, AaAtg4 interacts with the stress-responsive mitogen-activated protein kinase AaHog1, which modulates its phosphorylation under conditions less conducive to autophagy and thus, reinforces a dynamic signaling axis.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>These findings indicate that H₂O₂ has multifaceted effects on AaAtg4 in a dosage-dependent or threshold-specific manner. These regulatory mechanisms may position AaAtg4 as a central integrator of cellular stress responses and secondary metabolism, thereby advancing our understanding of fungal pathogenicity and environmental adaptation.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1881957"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13439277/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148681237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Aerolysin-like proteins from <i>Armillaria ostoyae</i> with potential roles in plant pathogenicity reveal a distant evolutionary relationship to toadfish natterins.","authors":"Omar Languar, Simang Champramary, Boris Indic, Chetna Tyagi, Nóra Tünde Lange-Enyedi, Domokos Máthé, Tibor Kovács, Ferenc Budán, Bence Arnold Gucsik, Csaba Vágvölgyi, Younes Rezaee Danesh, László Kredics, György Sipos","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1894067","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1894067","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding the evolutionary distribution and functional roles of toxins across diverse taxa remains a fundamental challenge in fungal biology. Aerolysin-like beta-pore-forming toxins are widely distributed across multiple kingdoms of life, yet their specific occurrence and structural diversity within the fungal kingdom remain poorly characterized. In our current study, we address this gap by investigating candidate aerolysin-like proteins in the basidiomycete <i>Armillaria ostoyae</i> using an integrated framework combining structural modeling, comparative genomics, and transcriptomic datasets spanning multiple developmental stages. Our results demonstrate that these candidate proteins are actively transcribed throughout the fungal life cycle, with consistent expression maintained in mature fruiting-body tissues. Notably, we show that the specific gene <i>ARMOST_18480</i> undergoes significant upregulation under plant-invasive conditions, strongly supporting its role as a putative pathogenicity-associated factor. Structural characterization revealed a modular architecture with deeply conserved pore-forming domains including Alanine-Glycine-Isoleucine-Proline (AGIP)-like loop variants homologous to vertebrate natterins from <i>Thalassophryne nattereri</i>, despite low overall sequence identity. Importantly, phylogenetic inference robustly resolves these <i>Armillaria</i> proteins within distinct fungal lineages well-separated from their vertebrate counterparts. Together, these findings significantly expand the known evolutionary distribution of the aerolysin superfamily and identify key candidates for future functional validation regarding pore-forming activity, plant pathogenicity, and mushroom-associated bioactivity.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1894067"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13433851/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148674683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rumen mycobiome dynamics and dairy productivity: functional contributions of fungi to milk yield in bovine ruminants.","authors":"Gurpreet Singh, Lavika, Nandini, Abhay, Deepika, Nishchal Thakur, Robin Kaura, Sukhraj Kaur, Harvinder Singh Saini, Sagar Khulape, Anil Kumar Puniya, Harmeet Singh Dhillon","doi":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1878257","DOIUrl":"10.3389/ffunb.2026.1878257","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The rumen microbiome is a key factor influencing feed efficiency and milk production in ruminants. However, most studies have focused on the bacterial and archaeal components, with the fungal fraction of the rumen being relatively understudied. The unique ability of anaerobic rumen fungi of the phylum <i>Neocallimastigomycota</i> to colonize and degrade lignocellulosic biomass in the rumen through mechanical disruption of plant cell walls has now made them well known as important functional members of the rumen ecosystem. These fungi are armed with a plethora of carbohydrate-active enzymes degrading fiber and increase the availability of substrates for microbial fermentation. This leads to increased production of volatile fatty acids, especially acetate, which is a major precursor for milk fat production. Recent research evidence has indicated that rumen fungal communities are associated with feed efficiency, fermentation dynamics, and milk composition traits such as fat and protein content in bovine ruminants such as cattle and buffalo. However, most of the studies available are correlative, and the direct causal relationships between fungal activity and milk productivity are poorly delineated. High-throughput sequencing and multi-omics approaches have broadened our knowledge of fungal diversity and function; however, there are still limitations in reference databases and methodological biases. This review summarizes the current knowledge of the diversity, ecological roles, and functional contributions of anaerobic rumen fungi, with special reference to their association with milk production. It also highlights significant methodological and conceptual gaps and proposes future avenues for the integration of fungal ecology into microbiome-based approaches to improve dairy productivity. We need a holistic multi-kingdom view of the rumen microbiome to design efficient and sustainable dairy production systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":73084,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in fungal biology","volume":"7 ","pages":"1878257"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13433603/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148681317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}