Mining Genetically Encoded Biosensors from Filamentous Fungi

Genetically encoded biosensors represent a cutting-edge class of biosensors due to real-time monitoring and programmability in living cell. However, the development of eukaryotic genetically encoded biosensors for new analytes is constrained by the shortage of signal–receptor pairs. Bacterial biosensors have been transferred to eukaryote to expand the signal detection space, having achieved remarkable success. However, due to the significant differences between eukaryotic and prokaryotic gene expression systems, optimizing bacterial biosensors has proven challenging. Successful cases indicate that developing orthogonal signal–receptor pairs directly from eukaryotic systems may offer a viable solution. Indeed, the potential of filamentous fungi—a highly diverse group of organisms that share conserved as well as specific signaling and metabolic pathways with yeast or mammalian cells—has been largely overlooked in biosensor development. In this review, we systematically examine sensing systems in filamentous fungi and summarize their signal recognition receptors, signal transduction pathways，responsive transcription factors and describe potential mining strategies for sensing elements from filamentous fungi.