Genomes of fungi and relatives reveal delayed loss of ancestral gene families and evolution of key fungal traits.

ABSTRACT: Fungi are ecologically important heterotrophs that have radiated into most niches on Earth and fulfil key ecological services. Despite intense interest in their origins, major genomic trends of their evolutionary route from a unicellular opisthokont ancestor to derived multicellular fungi remain poorly known. Here we provide a highly resolved genome-wide catalogue of gene family changes across fungal evolution inferred from the genomes of 123 fungi and relatives. We show that a dominant trend in early fungal evolution has been the gradual shedding of protist genes and the punctuated emergence of innovation by two main gene duplication events. We find that the gene content of non-Dikarya fungi resembles that of unicellular opisthokonts in many respects, owing to the conservation of protist

SUBMITTER: Merenyi Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10406608 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature