With further database mining, we have discovered ‘constellations’ of plasmids in much older fungal groups, specifically, the Zoopagomycota and Mucoromycota. These constellations have illuminated the linear plasmids’ (and zymocin-like toxins’) introduction to the Ascomycota. (8/10)

So, where did all of these come from? Are there more examples of them? Could a really old group of fungi have donated these killer plasmids to the Ascomycetes (budding yeasts and filamentous ascomycetes), or were they simply vertically inherited? They had to have come from somewhere (7/10)

My first publication demonstrated these killer plasmids and their toxins were found in far more species than just the 4 previously known (out of ~1500 known species). Through mining reads from the SRA, we discovered 45 novel toxins, many of which were functional: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... (4/10)

My PhD thesis grappled with a virus-like element (VLE) toxin system that some budding yeasts use to compete with other fungi. The VLEs encoding toxins are killer plasmids. The most famous example is in Kluyvermoyces lactis, and its killer plasmid encodes the toxin, zymocin (see killing below) (3/10)

A common question that all daydreamers and scientists (one and the same) have is “where does this come from?” Or “shouldn’t there be more examples of this?” Similar to looking at the stars in the sky and asking, “Is it really just us? That would be incredibly boring…” (2/10)

Hey! Are you at Beijing #SMBE 2025? Looking for something to do at 10:20 on Thursday? Come to my talk in Symposium 35 to hear about toxins in Fungi