Polarity in filamentous fungi: establishment, maintenance and new axes

Germ tube emergence in filamentous fungi appears to be similar to bud emergence in yeast. Several key proteins (e.g. Cdc42, septins, Bnil formin, Rho1 and Rho3) play common roles in polarity establishment and early polarity maintenance in both processes. Although germ tube extension, which can be thought of as extreme polarity maintenance, uses some of the same genes, they are likely to be regulated differently. Mutations in polarity maintenance genes often lead to a split tip in filamentous fungi, a phenotype without an analogue in yeast. Cell cycle regulation differs between tip splitting and subapical branching, but in both processes filamentous fungi maintain several axes of polar growth simultaneously.