Fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, is a key model eukaryote that has been studied in context of its distant relationship to other organisms. Rhind et al. (p. 930, published online 21 April; see the cover) compared genome sequences of four fission yeast species, including 5. pombe. Transposon structure and number differ significantly among species, and—while gene content, gene structure, and gene order are conserved—the degree of amino acid substitution is high. Antisense transcription was enriched for meiotic genes, suggesting that these transcripts may help to coordinate their expression. Furthermore, regulatory motif evolution and innovations in gene content and regulation may underlie the parallel evolution of ethanol metabolism in fission and budding yeast.
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