# An Alternative Self-Splicing Intron Lifecycle Revealed by Dynamic Intron Turnover in Epichloë Endophyte Mitochondrial Genomes

## TL;DR

This study reveals a new lifecycle for self-splicing introns in the mitochondrial genomes of Epichloë fungi, showing they are lost soon after fixation rather than degrading over time.

## Contribution

The paper presents a novel intron lifecycle model in Epichloë fungi, challenging the traditional degradation-based model.

## Key findings

- Self-splicing introns in Epichloë show presence-absence polymorphism due to vertical inheritance and multiple invasions.
- Introns are lost soon after fixation, not degraded over time as previously thought.
- Rapid intron loss suggests additional factors like homing suppressors influence their dynamics.

## Abstract

Self-splicing group I and II introns are selfish genetic elements that are widely yet patchily distributed across the tree of life. Their selfish behavior comes from super-Mendelian inheritance behaviors, collectively called “homing”, which allow them to rapidly spread within populations to the specific genomic sites they home into. Observations of self-splicing intron evolutionary dynamics have led to the formulation of an intron “lifecycle” model where, once fixed in a population, the introns lose selection for homing and undergo an extensive period of degradation until their eventual loss. Here, we find that self-splicing introns are common in the mitochondrial genomes of Epichloë species, endophytic fungi that live in symbioses with grasses. However, these introns show substantial intron presence–absence polymorphism, with our analyses suggesting that these result from a combination of vertical intron inheritance coupled with multiple invasion and loss events over the course of Epichloë evolution. Surprisingly, we find little evidence for the extensive intron degradation expected under the existing intron lifecycle model. Instead, these introns in Epichloë appear to be lost soon after fixation, suggesting that Epichloë self-splicing introns have a different lifecycle. However, rapid intron loss alone cannot explain our results, indicating that additional factors, such as the evolution of homing suppressors, also contribute to Epichloë self-splicing intron dynamics. This work shows that self-splicing introns have more diverse evolutionary dynamics than previously appreciated.