Evolutionary innovations through gain and loss of genes in the ectomycorrhizal Boletales

What is it about?

The fungal order Boletales is one of the most diverse lineages of symbiotrophic fungi. We found that the rate of gene family expansion in Boletales sharply increased in the late Miocene and mostly took place in ectomycorrhizal Boletaceae. Most of the ectomycorrhizal Boletales have a large genome size and a reduction in the diversity of plant cell wall degrading enzymes, but some ectomycorrhizal species in the Boletaceae, Paxillaceae and Boletinellaceae still have kept a substantial set of endoglucanases and LPMOs acting on cellulose/hemicellulose and fungal polysaccharides. The loss of secreted CAZymes was not related to TE activity, but to DNA decay.

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