New publication on HGT from fungi to mosses

Sun G., S. Bai, Y. Guan, Q. Wang, S. Wang, Y. Liu, H. Liu, B. Goffinet, Y. Zhou, M. Paoletti, X. Hu, F. Haas, N. Fernendez-Pozo, A. Czyrt, H. Sun, S. Rensing & J. Huang. 2020. Are fungi-derived genomic regions related to antagonism toward fungi in mosses? New Phytologist 228: 1169–1175. pdf

In this article the authors “report two genomic regions in the nuclear genome of the moss Physcomitrium patens, previously Physcomitrella patens (Medina et al., 2019; Rensing et al., 2020), that contain mostly fungi-specific genes and mobile genetic elements. These two regions were identified in our genome screening for horizontally acquired genes in P. patens. Available evidence indicates that these fungi-specific genes are likely involved in the interaction between mosses and fungi. We discuss how these fungi-specific genes might have contributed to the defense against fungal and other microbial pathogens, as well as the loss of MFAs in mosses.”