If you’re curious about Microsporidia, polyploidy, or assembling cobionts from non-target organisms — please check out our preprint! A HUGE thank you to my wonderful coauthors, and my supervisors @mblaxter.bsky.social and @marakat.bsky.social

The tetraploid genomes that we see are consistent with autopolyploidy, not allopolyploidy. While we’re unable to place the timing of polyploidisation events in Microsporidia, we propose that tetraploidy is a shared & ancient event in the group, with diploid lineages representing “reduced” forms.

Using the Hi-C data, we find that a tetraploid microsporidian genome is organised into two diploid compartments, likely the two nuclei in a diplokaryon. We also see evidence of recombination both within and between the two compartments - providing evidence for a sexual cycle in Microsporidia.