Laboratory of Phytopathology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Department of Crops and Agronomy, National Institute of Agricultural Botany, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Genome Biol Evol. 2019 Mar 1;11(3):855-868. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evz040.
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) involves the transmission of genetic material between distinct evolutionary lineages and can be an important source of biological innovation. Reports of interkingdom HGT to eukaryotic microbial pathogens have accumulated over recent years. Verticillium dahliae is a notorious plant pathogen that causes vascular wilt disease on hundreds of plant species, resulting in high economic losses every year. Previously, the effector gene Ave1 and a glucosyltransferase-encoding gene were identified as virulence factor-encoding genes that were proposed to be horizontally acquired from a plant and a bacterial donor, respectively. However, to what extent HGT contributed to the overall genome composition of V. dahliae remained elusive. Here, we systematically searched for evidence of interkingdom HGT events in the genome of V. dahliae and provide evidence for extensive horizontal gene acquisition from bacterial origin.
水平基因转移（HGT）涉及不同进化谱系之间遗传物质的传递，是生物创新的重要来源。近年来，有关真核微生物病原体种间 HGT 的报道不断增加。黄萎轮枝菌是一种臭名昭著的植物病原体，可导致数百种植物的维管束萎蔫病，每年造成巨大的经济损失。先前，效应子基因 Ave1 和编码葡萄糖基转移酶的基因被鉴定为毒力因子编码基因，分别被认为是从植物和细菌供体中水平获得的。然而，HGT 对黄萎轮枝菌整体基因组组成的贡献程度仍不清楚。在这里，我们系统地搜索了黄萎轮枝菌基因组中种间 HGT 事件的证据，并提供了大量来自细菌来源的水平基因获得的证据。
