Alexander, William G.

Barker, Bridget M.

Di Pietro, Antonio

Harb, Omar S.

Kamoun, Sophien

Martin, Francis

Momany, Michelle

Pires, J. Chris

Stajich, Jason E.

Thomma, Bart P H J

Unruh, Sarah

G3 : Genes, Genomes, Genetics

English

PubMed

Michelle Momany

Antonio Di Pietro

William G Alexander

Bridget M Barker

Omar S Harb

Sophien Kamoun

Francis Martin

J Chris Pires

Jason E Stajich

Bart P H J Thomma

Sarah Unruh

Crossref

G3 Genes|Genome|Genetics

Meeting Report: Fungal Genomics Meets Social Media: Highlights of the 28th Fungal Genetics Conference at Asilomar

Thomma, Bart P. H. J.

ProdInra

Meeting report: fungal genomics meets social media: highlights of the 28th fungal genetics conference at Asilomar

HAL Descartes

HAL: Hyper Article en Ligne

HAL portal of the University of Lorraine

University of East Anglia digital repository

MEETING REPORTMeeting Report: Fungal Genomics Meets SocialMedia: Highlights of the 28th Fungal GeneticsConference at AsilomarMichelle Momany,*,1 Antonio Di Pietro,† William G. Alexander,‡ Bridget M. Barker,§ Omar S. Harb,**Sophien Kamoun,†† Francis Martin,‡‡ J. Chris Pires,§§ Jason E Stajich,*** Bart P. H. J. Thomma,††† and Sarah Unruh§§*Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, †Department of Genetics, University of Cordoba, Cordoba,Spain 14071, ‡Laboratory of Genetics/DoE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1580,§TGen-North, Flagstaff, Arizona 86001, **The Eukaryotic Pathogen Databases, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6021, ††The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, United Kingdom NR4 7UH,‡‡Laboratoire d’excellence ARBRE, UMR INRA-Université de Lorraine ‘Interactions Arbre/Microorganismes’, Champenoux, France 54280,§§Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri 65211, ***Department of Plant Pathology & Microbiology,University of California, Riverside, California 92521, and †††Laboratory of Phytopathology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, TheNetherlands 6708 WGThe 28th Fungal Genetics Conference was heldMarch 17222, 2015, atthe Asilomar Conference Center in Paciﬁc Grove, California (http://www.genetics-gsa.org/fungal/2015/index.shtml). Arguably the mostpopular of international fungal genetics conferences, the Asilomarmeeting reached its registration cap 2 days before the early bird dead-line, with 910 participants from 35 countries.One striking feature of this year’smeetingwas the high level of Twitterparticipation. On the basis of analytics from the health care social mediaanalytics company Symplur (http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags) the hashtag #Fungal15 racked up 3456 tweets from349 participants, and tweets were seen by more than 3 millionothers.As is traditional, the meeting co-organizers have been asked tosummarize highlights of the conference. As is also traditional, such asummary is anearly impossible taskwith20plenary talks,216concurrenttalks, and 662 posters to be considered. In recognition of the highlevel of social media participation and to give greater coverage,scientiﬁc co-chairs Michelle Momany (University of Georgia) andAntonio Di Pietro (University of Cordoba, Spain) invited the toptweeters to join us in picking highlights of the 28th Fungal GeneticsConference. Even so, these highlights were not able to cover all theterriﬁc science at the meeting.MYCOTWEETSPerhaps not surprisingly, several of the top tweeters mentioned partic-ipation in the twitter subculture (along with the Genetics Society ofAmerica’s support of and participation in social media) as a meetinghighlight, noting that active use of Twitter during the meeting actuallyprovided an additional venue for scientiﬁc discussion and sharing ofideas. This type of access was especially useful during concurrent ses-sions, allowing followers of #Fungal15 to get a taste of talks they wereunable to attend. Twitter also was the subject of a talk in the educationand outreach session from Cat Adams (University of California Berke-ley), who pointed out that academic tweets are nine times more likelyto be rebroadcast and that 30% of tweets sent by academics contain a linkto a peer-reviewed resource. Because Twitter can be intimidating to newusers, Adams thoughtfully provided newbie tips for effective communi-cation (available for public download at http://www.scienceismetal.com).The education and outreach session also featured a number of talks thathighlighted the use of fungi as tools in undergraduate teaching and usefulonline resources, including the Genetics Society of America peer-reviewed education portal (http://www.genetics-gsa.org/education/).FUNGAL GENETICS IS NOW FUNGAL GENOMICSVirtually every area of research incorporated an “-omics” component.Although next-generation sequencing has allowed model fungi to pushforward, its beneﬁts have been especially notable for less-developed sys-tems. One outstanding example of genomics advancing a complex bio-logical system came from Rachel Dutton (Harvard University), whosegroup is studying patterns of microbial diversity in the surface-associatedcommunities that make up the rind of major types of cheeses—ediblebioﬁlms. High-throughput sequencing of 137 different rind communitiesacross 10 cheese-loving countries revealed 24 widely distributed and cul-turable genera of bacteria and fungi as dominant community members.Copyright © 2015 Momany et al.doi: 10.1534/g3.115.024158This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited.1Corresponding author: University of Georgia, Department of Plant Biology, 2502Miller Plant Sciences, Athens, GA 30602. E-mail: mmomany@uga.eduVolume 5 | December 2015 | 2523Intriguingly, highly reproducible community types evolved indepen-dent of geographic location of production. Microbial communities ofcheese rinds and other fermented foods represent an experimentallytractable system for deﬁning ecological and genetic mechanisms thatinﬂuence microbial community assembly and function.Several presentations focused on genome structure, evolution, and linksto epigenetics. Toni Gabaldón (Centre of Genome Regulation, Barcelona,Spain) postulated that the Saccharomyceswhole-genome duplication aroseafter hybridization of two species rather than genome doubling of a singlespecies. He presented compelling evidence for the existence of a coetaneousinterspecies hybridization, providing a new perspective for interpreting theorigin and consequences of genome expansions.High-quality genome assemblies inLeptosphaeriamaculans (ThierryRouxel, INRA-BIOGER, Grignon, France), Zymoseptoria tritici (DanielCroll, ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Jessica Soyer, University of Kiel,Germany), and Verticillium dahliae (Michael Seidl, Wageningen Univer-sity, Netherlands) provided new tools for analyzing sequence and struc-tural polymorphisms and their links to pathogenicity in populations ofthese species. For example, comparative analysis of V. dahliae genomesrevealed recent segmental duplications that established lineage-speciﬁcregions, suggesting that evolution is linked to segmental genome duplica-tions and rearrangements mediated by improperly repaired DNA breaks.Although epigenetic marks have been poorly characterized in ﬁla-mentous fungi outside the model species Neurospora crassa, the role ofepigenetics in pathogenicity is actively being investigated. So far, itappears that repeat-rich areas show increased marks of methylation.Mark Gijzen (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) reported on effectorgene silencing in Phytophthora. Intriguingly, his results suggest strain-speciﬁc epigenetic modiﬁcations enable the pathogen to evade plantimmune recognition while the effector gene itself is maintained.NEW TOOLS AND RESOURCESA highlight throughout the meeting was the sharing of new tools andtechniques in avarietyof fungal systems.Manyconcurrent sessionswereorganized around these themes: “Fungal Biotechnology” focused onmining fungi for enzymes; “Environmental Metagenomics” showedus how next-generation sequencing technologies are providing insightto the microbial world beyond just bacteria; “In vivo Imaging of Host-pathogen Interactions” illustrated what technologies are available toobserve these interactions in real time for both plant and animal path-ogens (#zebraﬁsh); some great tools and ideas were shared in the ed-ucation and outreach session, particularly with respect to navigatingsocial media; and ﬁnally the “Synthetic Biology” session featured prob-ably one of the hottest new techniques—the CRISPR/cas9 system aspresented by Christina Noedvig (Technical University of Denmark,The Netherlands), which was #standingroomonly—and highlightedour ability to advance fungal biology in new and exciting ways.CELEBRATION OF FUNGAL DIVERSITY: NOT JUST THEUSUAL SUSPECTSMany talks and presentations presented a perspective on fungal biologybeyond themodel ﬁlamentous and yeast systems. In her plenary sessiontalk, EmilyTroemel (UniversityofCalifornia,Davis,USA)describedherlaboratory’s work on Microsporida parasites of worms. Her studies arebuilding an understanding of the biology of Microsporidia throughgenomic comparisons, identifying unique patterns in gene families likehexokinases that may be important in host cell reprogramming. The“Extremophilic Fungi” concurrent session offered a plethora of speakerscovering fungi that excel in hot, arid, or salty environments. For exam-ple, NinaGunde-Cimerman (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) reportedon a group of halotolerant and human pathogenic fungi, such as Aur-eobasidium pullulans, that thrive in a variety of extreme environmentsand most surprisingly are commonly found in dishwashers.The “Early Diverging Fungi” session included many talks that high-lighted how genomic technologies are providing new looks at these enig-matic species. Mary Berbee (University of British Columbia, Canada)presented a novel hypothesis about the evolution of pectinases in chytridfungi and the implicated role in the metabolism and trophism of thesefungi. Alisha Quandt (University of Michigan) introduced work usingsingle-cell genomics to sequence the genomes of Cryptomycota lineagesthat are parasites of other fungi and protists. Other notable talks includedphylogenomics of the Zygomycetes from Jason Stajich (University ofCalifornia, Riverside), studies of Paramicrosporidium saccamoeba thatare parasites of Amoeba nuclei by Alisha Quandt (University of Mich-igan), and genome analysis of Nosema cernae, revealing recent popula-tion expansion by Nicolas Coradi (University of Ottawa, Canada). Yetanother highlight was the talk by Olga Lastovetsky (Cornell University)on fungal-bacterial symbioses between Rhizopus and endosymbioticBurkholderia bacteria, revealing extensive signaling that precedes theestablishment of symbiosis. In her plenary talk, Rosa Ruiz-Vazquez (Uni-versity of Murcia, Spain) presented the mechanisms of RNA silencing inthe Zygomycete Mucor circinelloides, an opportunistic pathogen of hu-mans, and reported exciting results on the presence of a second Dicer-independent RNAi pathway in the Zygomycetes.EVOLUTION REVOLUTIONMany laboratories currently are leveraging a combination of experimentalevolutionandhigh-throughputsequencingmethods tostudy themolecularbasis of adaptation and the reproducibility of evolutionary outcomes acrossa variety of model systems. This was elegantly highlighted in a Chair9sChoice talk by Gregory Lang (Lehigh University), who combined theawesome power of yeast genetics with robotics, subjecting hundreds ofisogenic Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations to laboratory evolution.Taking samples of the populations for analysis via ﬂow cytometry, high-throughput sequencing, and freezer storage (creating an artiﬁcial “fossilrecord”), his group showed that patterns of sequence evolution are drivenby a balance between chance events and the deterministic action of selec-tion on individual mutations, thus favoring parallel evolutionary solutionsin replicate populations. As sequencing technology continues to improveand sequencing cost to decrease, we are likely to see a striking increase inour ability to test fundamental questions in evolutionary biology of addi-tional fungal model systems, such as N. crassa, in the laboratory.CELL BIOLOGY, CELL CYCLE, AND FUNGALINTERACTIONSSeveral plenary talks highlighted the cytoskeleton and cell cycle. SamaraReck-Peterson (Harvard) gave a beautiful overview ofmicrotubule-basedintracellular transport, a fundamental process in all eukaryotic cells.Transport of themolecular motor dynein by a kinesin to the start of themicrotubule plus end was shown by the use of in vitro reconstitution.She illustrated how the construction of 3D artiﬁcial cargos helps todissect the mechanism of bi-directional, microtubule-based transport.Can’t help feeling that the talk from the Lang lab shouldhave had standing ovations at #Fungal15 Awesome science!Mikael R. Andersen @MRoerdamDutton’s talk also inspired one of the more unique hashtagsof the meeting #96wellcheeseplate; from Ken Bruno @KSBruno92524 | M. Momany et al.Berl Oakley (Kansas State University) showed that microtubule nucle-ator gamma tubulin has roles controlling the cell cycle, likely throughlocalization of spindle assembly checkpoint and other regulatory pro-teins. In an elegant dissection of appressorium development in the riceblast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, Nick Talbot (University of Exeter,UK) showed that appresorium formation is controlled by the cell cycle.By recreating classic cell-cycle mutations, his group demonstrated thatappresorium morphogenesis requires passage through the G2/M tran-sition and the DNA replication checkpoint. Nicholas Buchler (DukeUniversity) presented a thought-provoking analysis of the evolution ofcell-cycle control in eukaryotes, showing that the SBF transcriptionfactor, a major regulator of the G1/S transition, was likely introducedinto fungi by horizontal gene transfer from a DNA virus.AndreFleissner (BraunschweigTechnicalUniversity,Germany) andLouise Glass (University of California, Berkeley) provided two nicelycomplementary plenary talks on the mechanisms underlying cell2cellcommunication and hyphal fusion in N. crassa. Fleissner showed thatthe composition of the plasmamembrane is critical for proper cell2cellinteraction and that mutants accumulating speciﬁc ergosterol precur-sors exhibit defects in the fusion program. Glass showed that self andnonself interactions during germling fusion are linked, that an interplaybetween these two systems is important in the regulation of chemo-tropic interactions and cell fusion, and that genes involved in cell fusionare highly polymorphic.NOVEL ROLES FOR SECRETED PATHOGEN EFFECTORSSeveral talks introduced new functions for effectors of ﬁlamentouspathogens. Bart Thomma (Wageningen University, Netherlands) andTim Friesen (USDA-ARS and North Dakota State University) showedthat LysM effectors are produced by various plant pathogens to protectthem against host chitinases and suppress chitin-triggered immunity.Pietro Spanu (Imperial College, UK) presented a novel class of effectorproteins in cereal powdery mildews named RNAse-Like Proteins inHaustoria (RALPH), whose structure is highly similar to that of micro-bial RNAses and which interact with nucleic acids and with host pro-teins. Yet another type of secreted virulence effector was introduced byAntonio Di Pietro, (University of Cordoba, Spain): Fusarium RapidALkalinization Factor (f-ralf) was likely horizontally acquired fromplants and affects local pH during infection to promote host coloniza-tion. Yasin Dagdas (The Sainsbury Lab, UK) and Elodie Gaulin (Uni-versity Paul Sabatier, France) reported on functional analyses ofoomycete effectors that interfere with defense responses, either by tar-geting autophagosomes or by triggering host DNAdamage in plant andanimal cells. Gero Steinberg (University of Exeter, UK) presented aspectacular Chair’s Choice talk on long-distance endosome trafﬁckingthat drives fungal effector production, whereas Alga Zuccaro’s (Uni-versity of Cologne, Germany) plenary lecture provided novel insightsinto the molecular mechanisms driving endophytic interactions inplants, obtained from genomic studies in sebacinoid root endophytes.The ways in which effectors of oomycete and fungal pathogenstranslocate into plant cells remains an unsolvedmystery. StephanWawra(University of Cologne, Germany) proposed that the Arg-Xaa-Leu-Arg(RXLR) translocationmotif ofPhytophthora acts as a haustorial targetingdomain that is cleaved andN-acetylated before effector secretion, similarto a relatedmotif in host-translocated effectors of plasmodia. This evokesa model in which RXLR is involved in pre-secretory sorting rather thanhost translocation per se. However, the topic remains controversial sinceQunqing Wang (Oregon State University) reported experimental evi-dence arguing against effector cleavage during infection. Future break-throughs in this ﬁeld may originate from new host-translocation assays.Libera Lo Presti (MPI Marburg, Germany) reported promising progresson a BirA biotin ligase based assay of pathogen-dependent effectortranslocation.In the closing Perkins/Metzenberg Lecture,MichaelHynes (Universityof Melbourne, Australia) gave a sharp, entertaining, and highly personalviewofhis scientiﬁccareer, includingsoundadvice toearly career scientists:read, think, talk to your peers; be generous with your ideas and time; berealistic, ﬂexible and do not neglect your work-family life balance.AUTHOR TWITTER HANDLES@sau916 @fmartin1954@eupathdb @mycomancy@drvalleyfever @team_thomma@kamounlab @hyphaltip@jchrispires @mcmomanyFGC 28 WELCOME REMARKSWe are all here because at some time in the past we chose towork on fungi or organisms with fungal lifestyles. Some of uschose fungi because they are exquisite models. We wanted toanswer fundamental biological questions using the systems thatgave the world one gene-one enzyme and gamma tubulin, thathelped to unravel the control of cell cycle and circadian rhythms.Some chose fungi because of their massive potential fordamage and a desire to stop it. Every year fungal disease kills asmany people as malaria or tuberculosis. Perhaps even morestunning, every year 20%of agricultural crops are lostwithmostof that loss caused by fungi. That lost food is especially impor-tant, given our ever-growing population.Some chose fungi not because of their destructive potential,but because of their great capacity tomake and secrete products,a capacity that is a direct result of the fungal hallmark ofextracellular digestion. Every year industry uses 1.2 milliontons of citric acid in products such as soft drinks. Those 1.2million tons are made by a fungus. And, of course, fungi wereusing plants for biofuel long before it was trendy.Some did not choose fungi for their power asmodels or theirability to destroy or to make products. They chose fungi fortheir fascinating and unique biology. Members of the fungalkingdom range from microscopic unicellular yeasts to macro-scopic basidiomycetes with mycelia that cover acres. Whatdrives the evolution of such diversity?What drives interactionswith the environment and other organisms? With 500 se-quenced genomes and hundreds more in the pipeline we cananswer suchquestions at anunprecedented level of detail, a levelnot even imagined just ten years ago.Regardless of why you are here, we welcome you and sincerelyhope that you will be amazed and inspired at this 28th FungalGenetics Conference.-Michelle Momany, Scientiﬁc Co-ChairVolume 5 December 2015 | Fungal Genomics Meets Social Media | 2525

Meeting report:Fungal genomics meets social media: Highlights of the 28th fungal genetics conference at asilomar

Alexander, William G

Barker, Bridget M

Harb, Omar S

Pires, J Chris

Stajich, Jason E

Thomma, Bart PHJ

eScholarship - University of California

UC RiversideUC Riverside Previously Published WorksTitleMeeting Report: Fungal Genomics Meets Social Media: Highlights of the 28th Fungal Genetics Conference at AsilomarPermalinkhttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9nv5m9c1JournalG3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, 5(12)ISSN2160-1836AuthorsMomany, MichelleDi Pietro, AntonioAlexander, William Get al.Publication Date2015-12-01DOI10.1534/g3.115.024158Copyright InformationThis work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, availalbe at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Peer reviewedeScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital LibraryUniversity of CaliforniaMEETING REPORTMeeting Report: Fungal Genomics Meets SocialMedia: Highlights of the 28th Fungal GeneticsConference at AsilomarMichelle Momany,*,1 Antonio Di Pietro,† William G. Alexander,‡ Bridget M. Barker,§ Omar S. Harb,**Sophien Kamoun,†† Francis Martin,‡‡ J. Chris Pires,§§ Jason E Stajich,*** Bart P. H. J. Thomma,††† and Sarah Unruh§§*Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, †Department of Genetics, University of Cordoba, Cordoba,Spain 14071, ‡Laboratory of Genetics/DoE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1580,§TGen-North, Flagstaff, Arizona 86001, **The Eukaryotic Pathogen Databases, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6021, ††The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, United Kingdom NR4 7UH,‡‡Laboratoire d’excellence ARBRE, UMR INRA-Université de Lorraine ‘Interactions Arbre/Microorganismes’, Champenoux, France 54280,§§Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri 65211, ***Department of Plant Pathology & Microbiology,University of California, Riverside, California 92521, and †††Laboratory of Phytopathology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, TheNetherlands 6708 WGThe 28th Fungal Genetics Conference was heldMarch 17222, 2015, atthe Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California (http://www.genetics-gsa.org/fungal/2015/index.shtml). Arguably the mostpopular of international fungal genetics conferences, the Asilomarmeeting reached its registration cap 2 days before the early bird dead-line, with 910 participants from 35 countries.One striking feature of this year’smeetingwas the high level of Twitterparticipation. On the basis of analytics from the health care social mediaanalytics company Symplur (http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags) the hashtag #Fungal15 racked up 3456 tweets from349 participants, and tweets were seen by more than 3 millionothers.As is traditional, the meeting co-organizers have been asked tosummarize highlights of the conference. As is also traditional, such asummary is anearly impossible taskwith20plenary talks,216concurrenttalks, and 662 posters to be considered. In recognition of the highlevel of social media participation and to give greater coverage,scientific co-chairs Michelle Momany (University of Georgia) andAntonio Di Pietro (University of Cordoba, Spain) invited the toptweeters to join us in picking highlights of the 28th Fungal GeneticsConference. Even so, these highlights were not able to cover all theterrific science at the meeting.MYCOTWEETSPerhaps not surprisingly, several of the top tweeters mentioned partic-ipation in the twitter subculture (along with the Genetics Society ofAmerica’s support of and participation in social media) as a meetinghighlight, noting that active use of Twitter during the meeting actuallyprovided an additional venue for scientific discussion and sharing ofideas. This type of access was especially useful during concurrent ses-sions, allowing followers of #Fungal15 to get a taste of talks they wereunable to attend. Twitter also was the subject of a talk in the educationand outreach session from Cat Adams (University of California Berke-ley), who pointed out that academic tweets are nine times more likelyto be rebroadcast and that 30% of tweets sent by academics contain a linkto a peer-reviewed resource. Because Twitter can be intimidating to newusers, Adams thoughtfully provided newbie tips for effective communi-cation (available for public download at http://www.scienceismetal.com).The education and outreach session also featured a number of talks thathighlighted the use of fungi as tools in undergraduate teaching and usefulonline resources, including the Genetics Society of America peer-reviewed education portal (http://www.genetics-gsa.org/education/).FUNGAL GENETICS IS NOW FUNGAL GENOMICSVirtually every area of research incorporated an “-omics” component.Although next-generation sequencing has allowed model fungi to pushforward, its benefits have been especially notable for less-developed sys-tems. One outstanding example of genomics advancing a complex bio-logical system came from Rachel Dutton (Harvard University), whosegroup is studying patterns of microbial diversity in the surface-associatedcommunities that make up the rind of major types of cheeses—ediblebiofilms. High-throughput sequencing of 137 different rind communitiesacross 10 cheese-loving countries revealed 24 widely distributed and cul-turable genera of bacteria and fungi as dominant community members.Copyright © 2015 Momany et al.doi: 10.1534/g3.115.024158This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited.1Corresponding author: University of Georgia, Department of Plant Biology, 2502Miller Plant Sciences, Athens, GA 30602. E-mail: mmomany@uga.eduVolume 5 | December 2015 | 2523Intriguingly, highly reproducible community types evolved indepen-dent of geographic location of production. Microbial communities ofcheese rinds and other fermented foods represent an experimentallytractable system for defining ecological and genetic mechanisms thatinfluence microbial community assembly and function.Several presentations focused on genome structure, evolution, and linksto epigenetics. Toni Gabaldón (Centre of Genome Regulation, Barcelona,Spain) postulated that the Saccharomyceswhole-genome duplication aroseafter hybridization of two species rather than genome doubling of a singlespecies. He presented compelling evidence for the existence of a coetaneousinterspecies hybridization, providing a new perspective for interpreting theorigin and consequences of genome expansions.High-quality genome assemblies inLeptosphaeriamaculans (ThierryRouxel, INRA-BIOGER, Grignon, France), Zymoseptoria tritici (DanielCroll, ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Jessica Soyer, University of Kiel,Germany), and Verticillium dahliae (Michael Seidl, Wageningen Univer-sity, Netherlands) provided new tools for analyzing sequence and struc-tural polymorphisms and their links to pathogenicity in populations ofthese species. For example, comparative analysis of V. dahliae genomesrevealed recent segmental duplications that established lineage-specificregions, suggesting that evolution is linked to segmental genome duplica-tions and rearrangements mediated by improperly repaired DNA breaks.Although epigenetic marks have been poorly characterized in fila-mentous fungi outside the model species Neurospora crassa, the role ofepigenetics in pathogenicity is actively being investigated. So far, itappears that repeat-rich areas show increased marks of methylation.Mark Gijzen (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) reported on effectorgene silencing in Phytophthora. Intriguingly, his results suggest strain-specific epigenetic modifications enable the pathogen to evade plantimmune recognition while the effector gene itself is maintained.NEW TOOLS AND RESOURCESA highlight throughout the meeting was the sharing of new tools andtechniques in avarietyof fungal systems.Manyconcurrent sessionswereorganized around these themes: “Fungal Biotechnology” focused onmining fungi for enzymes; “Environmental Metagenomics” showedus how next-generation sequencing technologies are providing insightto the microbial world beyond just bacteria; “In vivo Imaging of Host-pathogen Interactions” illustrated what technologies are available toobserve these interactions in real time for both plant and animal path-ogens (#zebrafish); some great tools and ideas were shared in the ed-ucation and outreach session, particularly with respect to navigatingsocial media; and finally the “Synthetic Biology” session featured prob-ably one of the hottest new techniques—the CRISPR/cas9 system aspresented by Christina Noedvig (Technical University of Denmark,The Netherlands), which was #standingroomonly—and highlightedour ability to advance fungal biology in new and exciting ways.CELEBRATION OF FUNGAL DIVERSITY: NOT JUST THEUSUAL SUSPECTSMany talks and presentations presented a perspective on fungal biologybeyond themodel filamentous and yeast systems. In her plenary sessiontalk, EmilyTroemel (UniversityofCalifornia,Davis,USA)describedherlaboratory’s work on Microsporida parasites of worms. Her studies arebuilding an understanding of the biology of Microsporidia throughgenomic comparisons, identifying unique patterns in gene families likehexokinases that may be important in host cell reprogramming. The“Extremophilic Fungi” concurrent session offered a plethora of speakerscovering fungi that excel in hot, arid, or salty environments. For exam-ple, NinaGunde-Cimerman (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) reportedon a group of halotolerant and human pathogenic fungi, such as Aur-eobasidium pullulans, that thrive in a variety of extreme environmentsand most surprisingly are commonly found in dishwashers.The “Early Diverging Fungi” session included many talks that high-lighted how genomic technologies are providing new looks at these enig-matic species. Mary Berbee (University of British Columbia, Canada)presented a novel hypothesis about the evolution of pectinases in chytridfungi and the implicated role in the metabolism and trophism of thesefungi. Alisha Quandt (University of Michigan) introduced work usingsingle-cell genomics to sequence the genomes of Cryptomycota lineagesthat are parasites of other fungi and protists. Other notable talks includedphylogenomics of the Zygomycetes from Jason Stajich (University ofCalifornia, Riverside), studies of Paramicrosporidium saccamoeba thatare parasites of Amoeba nuclei by Alisha Quandt (University of Mich-igan), and genome analysis of Nosema cernae, revealing recent popula-tion expansion by Nicolas Coradi (University of Ottawa, Canada). Yetanother highlight was the talk by Olga Lastovetsky (Cornell University)on fungal-bacterial symbioses between Rhizopus and endosymbioticBurkholderia bacteria, revealing extensive signaling that precedes theestablishment of symbiosis. In her plenary talk, Rosa Ruiz-Vazquez (Uni-versity of Murcia, Spain) presented the mechanisms of RNA silencing inthe Zygomycete Mucor circinelloides, an opportunistic pathogen of hu-mans, and reported exciting results on the presence of a second Dicer-independent RNAi pathway in the Zygomycetes.EVOLUTION REVOLUTIONMany laboratories currently are leveraging a combination of experimentalevolutionandhigh-throughputsequencingmethods tostudy themolecularbasis of adaptation and the reproducibility of evolutionary outcomes acrossa variety of model systems. This was elegantly highlighted in a Chair9sChoice talk by Gregory Lang (Lehigh University), who combined theawesome power of yeast genetics with robotics, subjecting hundreds ofisogenic Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations to laboratory evolution.Taking samples of the populations for analysis via flow cytometry, high-throughput sequencing, and freezer storage (creating an artificial “fossilrecord”), his group showed that patterns of sequence evolution are drivenby a balance between chance events and the deterministic action of selec-tion on individual mutations, thus favoring parallel evolutionary solutionsin replicate populations. As sequencing technology continues to improveand sequencing cost to decrease, we are likely to see a striking increase inour ability to test fundamental questions in evolutionary biology of addi-tional fungal model systems, such as N. crassa, in the laboratory.CELL BIOLOGY, CELL CYCLE, AND FUNGALINTERACTIONSSeveral plenary talks highlighted the cytoskeleton and cell cycle. SamaraReck-Peterson (Harvard) gave a beautiful overview ofmicrotubule-basedintracellular transport, a fundamental process in all eukaryotic cells.Transport of themolecular motor dynein by a kinesin to the start of themicrotubule plus end was shown by the use of in vitro reconstitution.She illustrated how the construction of 3D artificial cargos helps todissect the mechanism of bi-directional, microtubule-based transport.Can’t help feeling that the talk from the Lang lab shouldhave had standing ovations at #Fungal15 Awesome science!Mikael R. Andersen @MRoerdamDutton’s talk also inspired one of the more unique hashtagsof the meeting #96wellcheeseplate; from Ken Bruno @KSBruno92524 | M. Momany et al.Berl Oakley (Kansas State University) showed that microtubule nucle-ator gamma tubulin has roles controlling the cell cycle, likely throughlocalization of spindle assembly checkpoint and other regulatory pro-teins. In an elegant dissection of appressorium development in the riceblast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, Nick Talbot (University of Exeter,UK) showed that appresorium formation is controlled by the cell cycle.By recreating classic cell-cycle mutations, his group demonstrated thatappresorium morphogenesis requires passage through the G2/M tran-sition and the DNA replication checkpoint. Nicholas Buchler (DukeUniversity) presented a thought-provoking analysis of the evolution ofcell-cycle control in eukaryotes, showing that the SBF transcriptionfactor, a major regulator of the G1/S transition, was likely introducedinto fungi by horizontal gene transfer from a DNA virus.AndreFleissner (BraunschweigTechnicalUniversity,Germany) andLouise Glass (University of California, Berkeley) provided two nicelycomplementary plenary talks on the mechanisms underlying cell2cellcommunication and hyphal fusion in N. crassa. Fleissner showed thatthe composition of the plasmamembrane is critical for proper cell2cellinteraction and that mutants accumulating specific ergosterol precur-sors exhibit defects in the fusion program. Glass showed that self andnonself interactions during germling fusion are linked, that an interplaybetween these two systems is important in the regulation of chemo-tropic interactions and cell fusion, and that genes involved in cell fusionare highly polymorphic.NOVEL ROLES FOR SECRETED PATHOGEN EFFECTORSSeveral talks introduced new functions for effectors of filamentouspathogens. Bart Thomma (Wageningen University, Netherlands) andTim Friesen (USDA-ARS and North Dakota State University) showedthat LysM effectors are produced by various plant pathogens to protectthem against host chitinases and suppress chitin-triggered immunity.Pietro Spanu (Imperial College, UK) presented a novel class of effectorproteins in cereal powdery mildews named RNAse-Like Proteins inHaustoria (RALPH), whose structure is highly similar to that of micro-bial RNAses and which interact with nucleic acids and with host pro-teins. Yet another type of secreted virulence effector was introduced byAntonio Di Pietro, (University of Cordoba, Spain): Fusarium RapidALkalinization Factor (f-ralf) was likely horizontally acquired fromplants and affects local pH during infection to promote host coloniza-tion. Yasin Dagdas (The Sainsbury Lab, UK) and Elodie Gaulin (Uni-versity Paul Sabatier, France) reported on functional analyses ofoomycete effectors that interfere with defense responses, either by tar-geting autophagosomes or by triggering host DNAdamage in plant andanimal cells. Gero Steinberg (University of Exeter, UK) presented aspectacular Chair’s Choice talk on long-distance endosome traffickingthat drives fungal effector production, whereas Alga Zuccaro’s (Uni-versity of Cologne, Germany) plenary lecture provided novel insightsinto the molecular mechanisms driving endophytic interactions inplants, obtained from genomic studies in sebacinoid root endophytes.The ways in which effectors of oomycete and fungal pathogenstranslocate into plant cells remains an unsolvedmystery. StephanWawra(University of Cologne, Germany) proposed that the Arg-Xaa-Leu-Arg(RXLR) translocationmotif ofPhytophthora acts as a haustorial targetingdomain that is cleaved andN-acetylated before effector secretion, similarto a relatedmotif in host-translocated effectors of plasmodia. This evokesa model in which RXLR is involved in pre-secretory sorting rather thanhost translocation per se. However, the topic remains controversial sinceQunqing Wang (Oregon State University) reported experimental evi-dence arguing against effector cleavage during infection. Future break-throughs in this field may originate from new host-translocation assays.Libera Lo Presti (MPI Marburg, Germany) reported promising progresson a BirA biotin ligase based assay of pathogen-dependent effectortranslocation.In the closing Perkins/Metzenberg Lecture,MichaelHynes (Universityof Melbourne, Australia) gave a sharp, entertaining, and highly personalviewofhis scientificcareer, includingsoundadvice toearly career scientists:read, think, talk to your peers; be generous with your ideas and time; berealistic, flexible and do not neglect your work-family life balance.AUTHOR TWITTER HANDLES@sau916 @fmartin1954@eupathdb @mycomancy@drvalleyfever @team_thomma@kamounlab @hyphaltip@jchrispires @mcmomanyFGC 28 WELCOME REMARKSWe are all here because at some time in the past we chose towork on fungi or organisms with fungal lifestyles. Some of uschose fungi because they are exquisite models. We wanted toanswer fundamental biological questions using the systems thatgave the world one gene-one enzyme and gamma tubulin, thathelped to unravel the control of cell cycle and circadian rhythms.Some chose fungi because of their massive potential fordamage and a desire to stop it. Every year fungal disease kills asmany people as malaria or tuberculosis. Perhaps even morestunning, every year 20%of agricultural crops are lostwithmostof that loss caused by fungi. That lost food is especially impor-tant, given our ever-growing population.Some chose fungi not because of their destructive potential,but because of their great capacity tomake and secrete products,a capacity that is a direct result of the fungal hallmark ofextracellular digestion. Every year industry uses 1.2 milliontons of citric acid in products such as soft drinks. Those 1.2million tons are made by a fungus. And, of course, fungi wereusing plants for biofuel long before it was trendy.Some did not choose fungi for their power asmodels or theirability to destroy or to make products. They chose fungi fortheir fascinating and unique biology. Members of the fungalkingdom range from microscopic unicellular yeasts to macro-scopic basidiomycetes with mycelia that cover acres. Whatdrives the evolution of such diversity?What drives interactionswith the environment and other organisms? With 500 se-quenced genomes and hundreds more in the pipeline we cananswer suchquestions at anunprecedented level of detail, a levelnot even imagined just ten years ago.Regardless of why you are here, we welcome you and sincerelyhope that you will be amazed and inspired at this 28th FungalGenetics Conference.-Michelle Momany, Scientific Co-ChairVolume 5 December 2015 | Fungal Genomics Meets Social Media | 2525

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Meeting report:Fungal genomics meets social media: Highlights of the 28th fungal genetics conference at asilomar

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