Year: 2022

IMPORTED GENES IN ROTIFER. “A. vaga has been subject to horizontal gene transfer as up to 8% of its genes are likely of non-metazoan origin, a frequency as high as reported for some bacteria. Frequent genomic rearrangements, gene conversion and horizontal gene transfers likely contribute to diversification and homogenization in the absence of sex, thereby revealing that sexual reproduction is not required for evolutionary success and persistence.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

CRYPTIC SEXUAL CYCLES. “Many fungal species have initially been considered to lack a conventional sexual cycle, and were thus seen as strictly asexual (clonal). However, several of these species were later discovered to have cryptic, hence hidden, sexual cycles, or other modes of reproduction.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

FUNGAL SEXUAL GENES. “Comparative genomics identified many meiosis-specific genes, as well as the mating type locus that encodes genes that are critically required for sexual reproduction, in the apparently asexual fungus Candida glabrata, suggesting it has a cryptic sexual cycle.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

LESS CRYPTIC. “In some cases, a sexual cycle has even been observed for apparently asexual species, such as for the saprotrophic and opportunistic mammalian pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

DIVERSE MECHANISMS. “In addition to rare, hidden, cycles of sexual reproduction that involve two opposite mating types, non-conventional modes of reproduction are also observed in presumed asexual species.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

STRANGE FUNGAL EXAMPLE. “Candida albicans was considered as an obligate diploid that reproduced strictly asexual, but was later found to undergo parasexual reproduction as well as unisexual reproduction. Parasexuality involves the fusion of two hyphae that form a genetically unstable polyploidy nucleus that quickly returns to the initial state by concerted chromosomal loss.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

FUNGAL RECOMBINATION. “Intriguingly, some of the meiosis-specific genes appear to be important for parasexuality, which has been extensively studied under laboratory conditions in C. albicans and can lead to extensive recombination of homologous chromosomes and supernumerary chromosomes.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT LINKAGE. “Unisexual reproduction frequently generates aneuploidy, which can be linked to phenotypic changes and drives adaptation. Interestingly, it has recently been hypothesized that unisexual reproduction may even be the original ancestral form of sexual reproduction to which sexes have evolved later.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

ASSUMPTION BUSTING. “With these alternative modes of reproduction in mind, one can wonder whether genuinely asexual, and truly clonal, fungal species really exist.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn

NEW VIEWPOINT. “We postulate that genomic rearrangements are a driver of adaptation in organisms that are not engaged in conventional sex.” https://lnkd.in/eC8eb-V View in LinkedIn