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Early branching genomes available

Genome sequencing is underway on several early branches in the Opisthokont and some related linages as part of the “Origins of Multicellularity” project at the Broad Institute (BI) include some recently made available assemblies for:

Allomyces macrogynus (Blastocladiomycota “Chytrid”)
Capsaspora owczarzaki (Ichthyosporea)

Already available data from

Monosiga brevicolis (JGI)
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (JGI, BI) (Chytridiomycota)

Still in progress (BI)

Amastigomonas sp
Amoebidium parasiticum
Nuclearia simplex
Salpingoeca or [...]

Chlamy genome investigations

Chlamy coverThis month’s Genetics has a series of articles exploring the genome (published last year & freely available at Science) of the green algae [[Chlamydomonas reinhardtii]]. These manuscripts are primarily genome analyses making for a very bioinformatics focused issue of Genetics. Some of the highlights [...]

Phytopathogenic Fungi: what have we learned from genome sequences?

ResearchBlogging.orgA review in Plant Cell from Darren Soanes and colleagues summarizes some of the major findings about evolution of phytopathogenic fungi gleaned from genome sequencing highlighting 12 fungi and 2 oomycetes. By mapping evolution of genes identified as virulence factors as well as genes that appear to have similar patterns of diversification, we can hope to derive some principals about how phytopathogenic fungi have evolved from saprophyte [...]

Fungal Genetics 2007 details

I’m including a recapping as many of the talks as I remember. There were 6 concurrent sessions each afternoon so you have to miss a lot of talks. The conference was bursting at the seams as it was- at least 140 people had to be turned away beyond the 750 who attended.

If there was any theme in the conference it was “Hey we are all using these genome [...]

Social Slime Mold

Slime molds are interesting organisms that receive surprisingly little attention. Take the case of Dictyostelium discoideum, a single-celled amoeba that, when starved, will aggregate with other D. discoideum amoeba cells in the neighborhood to create a motile, multicellular structure known as a slug. Eventually the slug differentiates into a reproductive structure, with some individuals making a long stalk and others producing [...]