Summary slide showing how the giant transposon "Chrysaor" (Centre) confers resistance to high concentrations of formalin in both Paecilomyces variotii (bottom right) and Aspergillus fumigatus (Bottom left). Phylogenies (Top left) and whole genome comparisons (Top right) indicate that Chrysaor has been horizontally transferred between these species.

The final version of our latest Starship manuscript is out!🚀We study the evolution of a gene cluster for formaldehyde resistance to show that #HGT mediated by giant Starship #transposons is a recurrent force in #fungal adaptation.
www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Despite being known about since the 1980s, there is still much to be learned about the basic mechanism(s) of how this mutation process—which appears unique to fungi—occurs and the implications of it on the evolution of fungi.