Clonality despite sex: the evolution of host-associated sexual neighborhoods in the pathogenic fungus Penicillium marneffei.

ABSTRACT: Molecular genetic approaches typically detect recombination in microbes regardless of assumed asexuality. However, genetic data have shown the AIDS-associated pathogen Penicillium marneffei to have extensive spatial genetic structure at local and regional scales, and although there has been some genetic evidence that a sexual cycle is possible, this haploid fungus is thought to be genetically, as well as morphologically, asexual in nature because of its highly clonal population structure. Here we use comparative genomics, experimental mixed-genotype infections, and population genetic data to elucidate the role of recombination in natural populations of P. marneffei. Genome wide comparisons reveal that all the genes required for meiosis are present in P. marneffei, mating type genes are arr

SUBMITTER: Henk DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3464222 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature