Abstract
The last 10 years have seen the cost of sequencing complete
genomes decrease at an incredible speed. This has led to an increase
in the number of genomes sequenced in all the fungal tree of life as
well as a wide variety of plant genomes. The increase in sequencing
has permitted us to study the evolution of organisms on a genomic
scale. A number of talks during the conference discussed the
importance of transposable elements (TEs) that are present in
almost all species of fungi. These TEs represent an especially large
percentage of genomic space in fungi that interact with plants.
Thierry Rouxel (INRA, Nancy, France) showed the link between
speciation in the Leptosphaeria complex and the expansion of TE
families. For example in the Leptosphaeria complex, one species
associated with oilseed rape has experienced a recent and massive
burst of movement by a few TE families. The alterations caused by
these TEs took place in discrete regions of the genome leading to
shuffling of the genomic landscape and the appearance of genes
specific to the species, such as effectors useful for the interactions
with a particular plant (Rouxel et al., 2011). Other presentations
showed the importance of TEs in affecting genome organization.
For example, in Amanita different species appear to have been
invaded by different TE families (Veneault-Fourrey & Martin,
2011).