Subject: RE: evolution of fungi/plants
From: [email-masked] (JASON K. DOBRANIC)
Date: 18 May 1994 21:37:54 GMT
Newsgroups: bionet.mycology

Hi,
	Here is part of an e-mail message I received from Dr. Atsatt a few 
months ago. I was preparing a seminar on the new theories of plant evolution 
and questioned him on if there was much debate to his theory. I would 
appreciate any comments you would have. I hope Dr. Atsatt does not 
disapprove of my use of his message.

Hi Jason. No there are as yet no papers that argue against my theory. 
Richard Jorgensen, on the other hand, has developed a flavonoid "spin" 
that he uses to support the general concept (Bio Systems, Jan?? 1994). The 
best way to argue against the theory is to ask "why cant someone demonstrate 
the presence of fungal genes in the plant nucleus"? If the transfer 
occurred recently (at about the time plants diverged from green algae, one 
should find genes with considerable homology to extant fungi.In fact, there 
are many similar genes, but they are usually highly conserved and thus not 
very convincing.My current opinion is that the interaction occurred very 
early,during the origin (divergence) of fungi and green algae, probably well 
over a billion years ago.Thus most of the transferred genes will not show 
high homology. Truth, or cunning copout? We"ll see. There are more data 
comming...but it may be a while. Cheers, P. Atsatt.