The Genome of the Fungal Pathogen Verticillium dahliae Reveals Extensive Bacterial to Fungal Gene Transfer

Abstract

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) involves the transmission of genetic material between distinct evolutionary lineages and can be an important source of biological innovation. Reports of interkingdom HGT to eukaryoticmicrobial pathogens have accumulated over recent years.Verticilliumdahliae is a notorious plantpathogenthat causes vascularwilt diseaseonhundredsofplant species, resulting in high economic losses every year. Previously, the effector gene Ave1 and a glucosyltransferase-encoding gene were identified as virulence factor-encoding genes that were proposed to be horizontally acquired from a plant and a bacterial donor, respectively. However, towhat extentHGT contributed totheoverall genomecompositionofV. dahliae remainedelusive.Here,we systematically searched for evidence of interkingdom HGT events in the genome of V. dahliae and provide evidence for extensive horizontal gene acquisition from bacterial origin.