Twenty-five new microsporidian genomes: Insights into ploidy, reproduction, and the group's pangenome

Hi-C and comparative genomics show tetraploid Amblyosporida microsporidia form two equivalent diploid units, while an Enterocytozoonida tetraploid genome suggests a monokaryon with all four copies in one nucleus.

• Why it matters: Microsporidia’s biology is hard to resolve due to sampling and experimental limitations, leaving key questions about genome organization, reproduction, and how their gene repertoire evolves largely unclear.
• What they did: The study generated 25 new microsporidian genomes (14 biologically complete, including several near-chromosome level, plus 11 partial) and used RNA-seq to identify Prokka as a suitable ab initio annotation approach for Microsporidia.
• The result: Across clades, the microsporidian pangenome shows extreme gene-content diversity and current data substantially undersample proteome space; GC content and genome span do not consistently explain orthogroup number, and few one-to-one or lineage-specific conserved orthogroups are found.

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