Massive gene swamping among cheese-making Penicillium fungi
Authors:Jeanne Ropars1,2, Gabriela Aguileta1,2,3, Damien M. de Vienne4,5 and Tatiana Giraud1,2
doi: 10.15698/mic2014.01.135
Volume 1, pp. 107 to 109, published 03/03/2014.
1 Univ Paris-Sud, Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, UMR8079, 91405 Orsay, France.
2 CNRS, Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, UMR8079, 91405 Orsay, France.
3 Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Dr, Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
4 CNRS, UMR 5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive.
5 Université de Lyon; Université Lyon 1; CNRS; UMR 5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive.
Keywords:
domestication, food, adaptive divergence, Saccharomyces.
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Please cite this article as:
Jeanne Ropars, Gabriela Aguileta, Damien M. de Vienne and Tatiana Giraud (2014). Massive gene swamping among cheese-making Penicillium fungi. Microbial Cell 1(3): 107-109.
© 2014 Ropars et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Horizontal gene transfers (HGT), i.e., the transmission of genetic material between species not directly attributable to meiotic gene exchange, have long been acknowledged as a major driver of prokaryotic evolution and is increasingly recognized as an important source of adaptation in eukaryotes. In fungi in particular, many convincing examples of HGT have been reported to confer selective advantages on the recipient fungal host, either promoting fungal pathogenicity on plants or increasing their toxicity by the acquisition of secondary metabolic clusters, resulting in adaptation to new niches and in some cases eventually even in speciation. These horizontal gene transfers involve single genes, complete metabolic pathways or even entire chromosomes. A recent study has uncovered multiple recent horizontal transfers of a 575 kb genomic island in cheese Penicillium fungi, representing ca. 2% of the Penicillium roqueforti’s genome, that may confer selective advantage in the competing cheese environment where bacteria and fungi occur. Novel phylogenomic methods are being developed, revealing massive HGT among fungi. Altogether, these recent studies indicate that HGT is a crucial mechanism of rapid adaptation, even among eukaryotes.