Rxivist combines preprints from bioRxiv with data from Twitter to help you find the papers being discussed in your field. Currently indexing 57,553 bioRxiv papers from 264,961 authors.

Genes in prokaryotic genomes are often arranged into clusters and co-transcribed into polycistronic RNAs. Isolated examples of polycistronic RNAs were also reported in some eukaryotes but their presence was generally considered rare. Here we developed a long-read sequencing strategy to identify polycistronic transcripts in several mushroom forming fungal species including Plicaturopsis crispa, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Trametes versicolor and Gloeophyllum trabeum1. We found genome-wide prevalence of polycistronic transcription in these Agaricomycetes, and it involves up to 8% of the transcribed genes. Unlike polycistronic mRNAs in prokaryotes, these co-transcribed genes are also independently transcribed, and upstream transcription may interfere downstream transcription. Further comparative genomic analysis indicates that polycistronic transcription is likely a feature unique to these fungi. In addition, we also systematically demonstrated that short-read assembly is insufficient for mRNA isoform discovery, especially for isoform-rich loci. In summary, our study revealed, for the first time, the genome prevalence of polycistronic transcription in a subset of fungi. Futhermore, our long-read sequencing approach combined with bioinformatics pipeline is a generic powerful tool for precise characterization of complex transcriptomes.

Download data

• Downloaded 553 times
• Download rankings, all-time:
  • Site-wide: 15,427 out of 57,611
  • In genomics: 1,974 out of 4,033
• Year to date:
  • Site-wide: 51,701 out of 57,611
• Since beginning of last month:
  • Site-wide: 54,313 out of 57,611

Altmetric data

Downloads over time

Distribution of downloads per paper, site-wide