Signatures of transposon-mediated genome inflation, host specialization, and photoentrainment in Entomophthora muscae and allied entomophthoralean fungi.

ABSTRACT: Despite over a century of observations, the obligate insect parasites within the order Entomophthorales remain poorly characterized at the genetic level. In this manuscript, we present a genome for a laboratory-tractable Entomophthora muscae isolate that infects fruit flies. Our E. muscae assembly is 1.03 Gb, consists of 7810 contigs and contains 81.3% complete fungal BUSCOs. Using a comparative approach with recent datasets from entomophthoralean fungi, we show that giant genomes are the norm within Entomophthoraceae owing to extensive, but not recent, Ty3 retrotransposon activity. In addition, we find that E. muscae and its closest allies possess genes that are likely homologs to the blue-light sensor white-collar 1, a Neurospora crassa gene that has a

SUBMITTER: Stajich JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11105155 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature