Editorial: Genomic insights on fungal hybrids
- Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS) (Spain); Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Tarragona (Spain); Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain). Inst. Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats (ICREA); Centro de Investigacion Biomedica En Red de Enfermedades Infecciosas (CIBERINFEC), Barcelona (Spain)
- Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
Hybrids are chimeric organisms that result from the crossing of two genetically divergent lineages. Compared to their parents, hybrids sometimes show higher adaptive capacities towards specific niches, thereby contributing to diversification (Abbott et al., 2013). Fungal hybrids have been neglected by formal studies for a long time due to the inherent challenges of the microbial species concept and the difficulty of identifying hybrids based on morphological characters (Gabaldon, 2020a; Boekhout et al., 2021). Although the first fungal hybrids were identified in Saccharomyces, thanks to careful dissection of metabolic properties (Morales and Dujon, 2012) and emerging genome sequencing technologies (Hittinger, 2013), it was the spread of these sequencing technologies that revealed the true pervasiveness of hybrids across the fungal tree of life (Naranjo-Ortiz and Gabaldon, 2020; Gabaldon, 2020b). Sequencing techniques, particularly genomic approaches, have not only unearthed the hybrid nature of many fungal organisms, but also serve as ideal tools for the study of hybrids. Hybrids have chimeric genomes, which usually display high instability and are subject to evolutionary pressures that are different from that of non-hybrid genomes (Runemark et al., 2019). Understanding how hybrids are formed, how they cope with their chimeric genomes, and how they evolve and adapt to distinct environments is a matter of intensive research. This Research Topic gathers six outstanding contributions that use genomic approaches to tackle diverse questions that relate to fungal hybrids.
- Research Organization:
- Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; European Research Council (ERC); Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; “La Caixa” Foundation; Instituto de Salud Carlos III; European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDA
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0018409; PID2021-126067NB-I00; ERC-2016-724173; GBMF9742; LCF/PR/HR21/00737; IMP/00019; CB21/13/00061- ISCIII-SGEFI/ERDF; DEB-1442148; DEB-2110403; 1020204
- OSTI ID:
- 1922509
- Journal Information:
- Frontiers in Fungal Biology, Vol. 3; ISSN 2673-6128
- Publisher:
- Frontiers Media S.A.Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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