Starship transposons and a new framework to understand fungal evolution
This month's ERGA BioGenome Analysis & Applications Seminar will feature talks by Emile Gluck-Thaler and Aaron Vogan on the recently discovered Starship giant transposons and their implications for the study of fungal evolution and adaptation. See more details below
Wednesday, September 30th 2026 - 16:00 CEST
Youtube link: https://youtube.com/live/6eC7dvlPBQk?feature=share
Abstract
Talk 1: Starship transposons and the makings of a new framework to understand fungal evolution
Talk 2: Starship transposons: Drivers of adaptation across fungi
Starships are a recently discovered superfamily of giant transposons found across hundreds of fungal species. Starships are fundamentally unlike typical eukaryotic transposons because they span hundreds of kilobases and mobilize dozens of genes, including those encoding phenotypes ranging from stress resistance to host-microbe interactions. Although we have known about the existence of Starships for only five years, sustained efforts and collaborations are rapidly establishing systems to move from identifying genomic patterns to characterizing the genetic processes underpinning Starship biology, including their roles as vectors of fungal-to-fungal horizontal gene transfer. We argue that the little we know about Starships already raises important questions about the mechanisms of adaptation across medically, agriculturally and economically important groups of fungi. Drawing on examples of Starship activity spanning individual species to entire phyla, we build on existing models of fungal genome biology to propose that Starships are a distinct genomic compartment whose dynamics must be considered to fully understand and predict the mode and tempo of fungal evolution.
Speakers
Dr. Emile Gluck-Thaler
Assistant professor, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Gluck-Thaler received his PhD in 2019 from the Ohio State University. In 2023, he began his current position as an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is the PI of the Fungal Interactions Lab. The goal of the Fungal Interactions Lab is to better understand the fungi that threaten plant and human health with a focus on answering the question: how do fungi acquire new strategies for interacting with other organisms, including humans, plants and other microbes?
Dr. Aaron Vogan, Docent, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Institute of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University
Received his PhD from McMaster University in 2016. In 2020 received funds to begin his own research group at Uppsala University. In 2024 became an associate professor. He is the PI of the Fungal Accessory Genome Evolution lab, where we seek to understand how within population/species variation shapes fungal evolution and adaptation. Research encompasses human and plant pathogens, as well as model organisms across filamentous fungi. We seek to obtain comprehensive views of fungal biology by integrating molecular biology, physiology, population and comparative genomics to uncover how these organisms are capable of adapting to nearly every niche on Earth.
