Corradi Nicolas, Lildhar Levannia
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research; Department of Biology; University of Ottawa; Ottawa, ON Canada.
Commun Integr Biol. 2012 Mar 1;5(2):187-9. doi: 10.4161/cib.18850.
The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are important symbionts of land plants, which are known for their tremendous positive effects on terrestrial ecosystems, their peculiar cellular features, and their very old evolutionary history. To date, no sexual stage or apparatus have ever been observed in these organisms; a remarkable absence for a eukaryotic lineage. For this reason, AMF have long been considered an evolutionary oddity, having evolved for over 500 millions of years in the absence of sexual reproduction and meiosis. Here, we discuss the recent identification across a number of AMF genomes, of many genes that are known to be involved in the process of meiosis in several eukaryotic model species. The presence of these genes in AMF is a previously unsuspected and highly intriguing finding, which suggests the presence of a "hidden" sexual (or parasexual) reproduction that awaits formal observation in these poorly studied fungi.
丛枝菌根真菌（AMF）是陆地植物重要的共生体，它们以对陆地生态系统的巨大积极影响、独特的细胞特征以及悠久的进化历史而闻名。迄今为止，在这些生物体中从未观察到有性阶段或有性生殖器官；这在真核生物谱系中是非常罕见的。因此，AMF长期以来一直被视为进化上的异类，在没有有性生殖和减数分裂的情况下已经进化了超过5亿年。在此，我们讨论了最近在多个AMF基因组中发现的许多基因，这些基因在几种真核生物模式物种中已知参与减数分裂过程。这些基因在AMF中的存在是一个先前未被怀疑且极具吸引力的发现，这表明存在一种“隐藏”的有性（或准性）生殖，有待在这些研究较少的真菌中进行正式观察。
