Tangerine: a new family of Starships from
lichen-forming fungi
Tagirdzhanova G., Brown N. E.,
Bucknell A. H., Cameron E. S.,
Finn R. D., Blaxter M., McDonald M. C.,
Gluck-Thaler E. & Talbot N. J.
We describe the first Starship found in
a lichen-forming fungus, Tangerine.
Identified in X. parietina,
Tangerine defines a new
Starship family restricted to
Lecanoromycetes. Additional broader
phylogenetics reveal signatures of HGT between
distantly related lichen symbiont and
lichen-associated fungi.
Sanctuary: A Starship transposon facilitating
the movement of the virulence factor ToxA in
fungal wheat pathogens
Bucknell A. H.*, Wilson H. M.*,
Gonçalves do Santos K. C., Simpfendorfer S.,
Milgate A., Germain H., Solomon P. S., Bentham
A. R. & McDonald M. C.
Sequencing of B. sorokiniana reveals
the twice previously identified,
virulence-associated transposon ToxTA, embedded
within the novel Starship Sanctuary. As
ToxTA is also carried by the unrelated
Starship Horizon within
P. tritici-repentis, we argue that HGT
is a key driver of virulence evolution in these
fungal wheat pathogens.
Complexity of the lichen symbiosis revealed by
metagenome and transcriptome analysis of
Xanthoria parietina
Tagirdzhanova G., Scharnagl K., Sahu N., Yan X.,
Bucknell A. H., Bentham A. R.,
Jégousse C., Ament-Velàsquez S. L., Brännström
I. O., Johannesson H., MacLean D. & Talbot
N. J.
A meta-omic analysis of the lichen
X. parietina reveals 168 associated
microbial genomes. Through comparative
transcriptomics we show the upregulation of
predicted immunity-linked and effector-like
proteins, consistent with potential manipulation
of the symbionts during lichen morphogenesis.
That's no moon, it's a Starship: Giant
transposons driving fungal horizontal gene
transfer
Bucknell A. H. & McDonald
M. C.
This perspective article reviews the evidence
behind the transposition of Starships,
large transposons exclusive to Pezizomycotina
fungi. We hypothesise mechanisms regarding their
inter-/intra-genome movement, and outline
experimental strategies to establish the first
working models of active inter-species Starship
transfer.