TY - JOUR T1 - The genome of the fungal pathogen <em>Verticillium dahliae</em> reveals extensive bacterial to fungal gene transfer JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/485037 SP - 485037 AU - Xiaoqian Shi-Kunne AU - Mathijs van Kooten AU - Jasper R.L. Depotter AU - Bart P.H.J. Thomma AU - Michael F. Seidl Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/03/485037.abstract N2 - 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 inter-kingdom HGT to eukaryotic microbial pathogens have accumulated over recent years. Verticillium dahliae is a notorious plant pathogen that causes vascular wilt disease on hundreds of plant 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, to what extent HGT contributed to the overall genome composition of V. dahliae remained elusive. Here, we systematically searched for evidence of inter-kingdom HGT events in the genome of V. dahliae and provide evidence for extensive horizontal gene acquisition from bacterial origin. ER -