Starship

Starships are a type of eukaryotic class 2 transposable element (TE). They are mobilized by a site-specific recombinase termed the "captain". They are strictly found within fungi of the subphylum Pezizomycotina, where they appear to be widespread. They are characterized by a number of features that separate them from typical TEs. Starship elements are generally found in only a single copy in a genome, whereas other TEs are almost universally multicopy. In addition to the captain, Starships are observe to carry a large diversity of additional genes termed cargo. These genes largely appear to be acquired from fungal genomes, but the mechanism of capture is unknown. Cargo genes can have important impacts of host phenotypes, including plant pathogenicity, heavy metal resistance, and cheese production. Due to the inclusion of additional genes, Starships are considerably larger than typical DNA transposons, with a current distribution between 25 kb and 700 kb.