A Search for Developmental Gene Sequences in the Genomes of Filamentous Fungi

There is now a sufficient number of filamentous fungal genomes in the public databases to warrant at least initial comparisons with animal and plant genomes. Our interest lies in the control of multicellular morphogenesis, which is a feature of filamentous ascomycetes and basidiomycetes. Search of a representative collection of filamentous fungal genomes with gene sequences generally considered to be essential and highly conserved components of normal development in animals failed to reveal any homologies. We conclude that fungal and animal lineages diverged from their common opisthokont line well before the emergence of any multicellular arrangement, and that the unique cell biology of filamentous fungi has caused control of multicellular development in fungi to evolve in a radically different fashion from that in animals and plants.