Lichens are symbiotic organisms consisting of a fungal partner (the mycobiont) and one or more algal or cyanobacterial partners (the photobiont); moreover lichen thalli comprise a plethora of epi- and endobiotic bacteria and non-lichenized fungi. Genetic markers are the most promising tools for the study of fungal diversity. However, applying genetic methods to intimately admixed symbiotic organisms typically requires the development of species-specific genetic markers, since DNA extraction from environmental specimens implicates the acquirement of total DNA of all symbionts and their cohabitants. While the cultivation of the alga is straight forward, the axenic cultivation of lichen-forming fungi is more difficult due to their very slow growth, as compared with the majority of non-lichenized taxa, and the presence of saprophytic, endophytic and parasitic fungi within the lichen thallus. Moreover, lichen-forming fungi (predominantly ascomycetes, few basidiomycetes) are oligotrophic organisms and thus adapted to nutrient poor conditions; in axenic culture on nutrient-rich media, as normally used for mass production of fast-growing saprophytic fungi, they often autointoxicate. Most lichen-forming fungi are not obligately biotrophic and thus can be cultured in the non-symbiotic state.
Here, we present a protocol for the isolation of the lichen-forming ascomycete Lobaria pulmonaria into axenic culture and for mycelial mass culture as a source of pure fungal DNA. We describe the initiation of axenic cultures on agar plates from germinating ascospores and explain the optimization of the in vitro growth in liquid medium. By grinding the few dense, only centrifugally growing fungal colonies with a homogenizer we obtain lots of smaller, well growing colonies and thus higher amounts of mycelium for DNA or RNA isolation (Honegger and Bartnicki-Garcia, 1991).