Department of Biology, Wake Forest University, P.O. Box 7325, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA.
Curr Opin Microbiol. 2009 Dec;12(6):592-8. doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2009.09.011. Epub 2009 Oct 21.
Sex in fungi is often associated with dispersal and dormancy, but in many species is not required for reproduction, and its evolutionary genetic role is unclear. Sex can accelerate adaptation to a new environment, and recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, though historically rare, has had a prominent role in the origins of many sequenced strains, in particular the origin of clinical strains from domesticated ancestors. Sex and recombination have recently been discovered in several human pathogens that were long thought to be asexual, but so far there is no compelling evidence that it plays an important genetic role in their adaptation. The self-compatible (homothallic) sexual systems of many fungi severely limit their potential for recombination, but increase the rate at which they can segregate new adaptive mutations into homozygotes, a possible benefit of sex that has received much less attention than recombination.
真菌中的有性生殖通常与传播和休眠有关，但在许多物种中并非繁殖所必需，其进化遗传作用尚不清楚。有性生殖可以加速对新环境的适应，而酿酒酵母中的重组虽然在历史上较为罕见，但在许多已测序菌株的起源中扮演了重要角色，尤其是驯化祖先起源的临床菌株。在几种长期被认为是无性的人类病原体中，最近发现了有性生殖和重组现象，但目前还没有令人信服的证据表明，它在病原体的适应中发挥了重要的遗传作用。许多真菌的自交亲和（同宗配合）有性生殖系统严重限制了它们的重组潜力，但增加了它们将新的适应性突变分离到纯合子中的速度，这是有性生殖的一个可能的好处，但其受到的关注远不及重组。
