The role of massive transposons in the evolution of fungi

The arms race between hosts and pathogens is a well known driver of evolution, and has been formulated by the concept of the "Red Queen Hypothesis". One of the necessities of this race is the need for genomes to adapt to change quickly.

To achieve this, some organisms such as fungi, employ a strategy, whereby the genome is compartmentalized into a core genome, with important housekeeping genes, and an accessory genome, with genes needed for rapidly changing lifestyles like pathogenicity.

In bacteria, it is known that one of the ways to acquire an accessory genome is through horizontal gene transfer (HGT), through active integration of metabolic cassettes.

Eukaryotes, such as plant pathogenic fungi, are not currently known to employ such a mechanism, thus the evolutionary origin of accessory genomes and modes through which they acquire novel function remain almost entirely a mystery in these organisms.

Here, I propose to reveal the role of a novel family of massive transposable elements in the duplication and HGT of adaptive genes between unrelated strains of fungi, with the long term goal of understanding how accessory genomes arise, evolve, and spread virulence.

Ultimately, this project will uncover invaluable information regarding how fungi have evolved to be such prolific pathogens, and provide us with a better understanding of how to combat them in the future.