Urquhart Andrew, Vogan Aaron A, Gluck-Thaler Emile
Systematic Biology, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, 752 36, Sweden.
Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA; Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Trends Genet. 2024 Dec;40(12):1060-1073. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2024.08.006. Epub 2024 Sep 18.
Transposable elements (TEs) are semiautonomous genetic entities that proliferate in genomes. We recently discovered the Starships, a previously hidden superfamily of giant TEs found in a diverse subphylum of filamentous fungi, the Pezizomycotina. Starships are unlike other eukaryotic TEs because they have evolved mechanisms for both mobilizing entire genes, including those encoding conditionally beneficial phenotypes, and for horizontally transferring between individuals. We argue that Starships have unrivaled capacity to engage their fungal hosts as genetic parasites and mutualists, revealing unexplored terrain for investigating the ecoevolutionary dynamics of TE-eukaryote interactions. We build on existing models of fungal genome evolution by conceptualizing Starships as a distinct genomic compartment whose dynamics profoundly shape fungal biology.
转座元件（TEs）是在基因组中增殖的半自主遗传实体。我们最近发现了“星际飞船”，这是一个以前隐藏的巨型转座元件超家族，存在于丝状真菌子囊菌亚门的一个多样化分支中。“星际飞船”与其他真核转座元件不同，因为它们已经进化出了既能移动整个基因（包括那些编码有条件有益表型的基因）又能在个体之间水平转移的机制。我们认为，“星际飞船”作为遗传寄生虫和共生体，在与真菌宿主的相互作用方面具有无与伦比的能力，为研究转座元件与真核生物相互作用的生态进化动态开辟了未被探索的领域。我们通过将“星际飞船”概念化为一个独特的基因组区域，其动态变化深刻地塑造了真菌生物学，从而在现有的真菌基因组进化模型基础上进行拓展。
