In Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story, Dr Henry Jekyll drinks a mysterious potion that transforms him from an upstanding citizen into the violent, murderous Edward Hyde. We might think that such an easy transformation would be confined to the pages of fiction, but a similar fate regularly befalls a common fungus called Fusarium oxysporum.
A team of scientists led by Li-Jun Ma and Charlotte van der Does have found that the fungus can swap four entire chromosomes form one individual to another. This package is the genetic equivalent of Stevenson's potion. It has everything a humble, Jekyll-like fungus needs to transform from a version that coexists harmlessly with plants into a Hyde-like agent of disease. In this guise, it infects so many plant species so virulently that it has earned the nickname of Agent Green and has been considered for use as a biological weapon. It can even infect humans.
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