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Pereira AG, Grizante MB, Kohlsdorf T. What snakes and caecilians have in common? Molecular interaction units and the independent origins of similar morphotypes in Tetrapoda. Proc Biol Sci 2022; 289:20220841. [PMID: 35975445 PMCID: PMC9382212 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0841] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2022] [Accepted: 07/25/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Developmental pathways encompass transcription factors and cis-regulatory elements that interact as transcription factor-regulatory element (TF-RE) units. Independent origins of similar phenotypes likely involve changes in different parts of these units, a hypothesis promisingly tested addressing the evolution of the rib-associated lumbar (RAL) morphotype that characterizes emblematic animals such as snakes and elephants. Previous investigation in these lineages identified a polymorphism in the Homology region 1 [H1] enhancer of the Myogenic factor-5 [Myf5], which interacts with HOX10 proteins to modulate rib development. Here we address the evolution of TF-RE units focusing on independent origins of RAL morphotypes. We compiled an extensive database for H1-Myf5 and HOX10 sequences with two goals: (i) evaluate if the enhancer polymorphism is present in amphibians exhibiting the RAL morphotype and (ii) test a hypothesis of enhanced evolutionary flexibility mediated by TF-RE units, according to which independent origins of the RAL morphotype might involve changes in either component of the interaction unit. We identified the H1-Myf5 polymorphism in lineages that diverged around 340 Ma, including Lissamphibia. Independent origins of the RAL morphotype in Tetrapoda involved sequence variation in either component of the TF-RE unit, confirming that different changes may similarly affect the phenotypic outcome of a given developmental pathway.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anieli G. Pereira
- Department of Biology, FFCLRP, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Mariana B. Grizante
- Department of Biology, FFCLRP, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil
- Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology, Sao Paulo, Brazil
| | - Tiana Kohlsdorf
- Department of Biology, FFCLRP, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil
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Yu H, Chen M, Hu Y, Ou S, Yu X, Liang S, Li N, Yang M, Kong X, Sun C, Jia S, Zhang Q, Liu L, Hurst LD, Li R, Wang W, Wang J. Dynamic reprogramming of H3K9me3 at hominoid-specific retrotransposons during human preimplantation development. Cell Stem Cell 2022; 29:1031-1050.e12. [PMID: 35803225 DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2022.06.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2021] [Revised: 04/06/2022] [Accepted: 06/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Reprogramming of H3K9me3-dependent heterochromatin is required for early development. How H3K9me3 is involved in early human development remains, however, largely unclear. Here, we resolve the temporal landscape of H3K9me3 during human preimplantation development and its regulation for diverse hominoid-specific retrotransposons. At the 8-cell stage, H3K9me3 reprogramming at hominoid-specific retrotransposons termed SINE-VNTR-Alu (SVA) facilitates interaction between certain promoters and SVA-derived enhancers, promoting the zygotic genome activation. In trophectoderm, de novo H3K9me3 domains prevent pluripotent transcription factors from binding to hominoid-specific retrotransposons-derived regulatory elements for inner cell mass (ICM)-specific genes. H3K9me3 re-establishment at SVA elements in the ICM is associated with higher transcription of DNA repair genes, when compared with naive human pluripotent stem cells. Our data demonstrate that species-specific reorganization of H3K9me3-dependent heterochromatin at hominoid-specific retrotransposons plays important roles during early human development, shedding light on how the epigenetic regulation for early development has evolved in mammals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hanwen Yu
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China
| | - Manqi Chen
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China
| | - Yuanlang Hu
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China; The First Affiliated Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510630, China
| | - Songbang Ou
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510120, China
| | - Xiu Yu
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China
| | - Shiqi Liang
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China
| | - Niannian Li
- State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China; Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
| | - Mingzhu Yang
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China
| | - Xuhui Kong
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China
| | - Chuanbo Sun
- Laboratory of Medical Systems Biology, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510623, China
| | - Shiqi Jia
- The First Affiliated Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510630, China
| | - Qingxue Zhang
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510120, China
| | - Lin Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China; Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
| | - Laurence D Hurst
- Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, UK
| | - Ruiqi Li
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510120, China.
| | - Wenjun Wang
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510120, China.
| | - Jichang Wang
- Department of Histology and Embryology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China; Key Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510080, China.
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Jia H, Aadland K, Kolaczkowski O, Kolaczkowski B. Direct molecular evidence for an ancient, conserved developmental toolkit controlling post-transcriptional gene regulation in land plants. Mol Biol Evol 2021; 38:4765-4777. [PMID: 34196710 PMCID: PMC8557471 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab201] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In plants, miRNA production is orchestrated by a suite of proteins that control transcription of the pri-miRNA gene, post-transcriptional processing and nuclear export of the mature miRNA. Post-transcriptional processing of miRNAs is controlled by a pair of physically interacting proteins, hyponastic leaves 1 (HYL1) and Dicer-like 1 (DCL1). However, the evolutionary history and structural basis of the HYL1–DCL1 interaction is unknown. Here we use ancestral sequence reconstruction and functional characterization of ancestral HYL1 in vitro and in Arabidopsis thaliana to better understand the origin and evolution of the HYL1–DCL1 interaction and its impact on miRNA production and plant development. We found the ancestral plant HYL1 evolved high affinity for both double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) and its DCL1 partner before the divergence of mosses from seed plants (∼500 Ma), and these high-affinity interactions remained largely conserved throughout plant evolutionary history. Structural modeling and molecular binding experiments suggest that the second of two dsRNA-binding motifs (DSRMs) in HYL1 may interact tightly with the first of two C-terminal DCL1 DSRMs to mediate the HYL1–DCL1 physical interaction necessary for efficient miRNA production. Transgenic expression of the nearly 200 Ma-old ancestral flowering-plant HYL1 in A. thaliana was sufficient to rescue many key aspects of plant development disrupted by HYL1− knockout and restored near-native miRNA production, suggesting that the functional partnership of HYL1–DCL1 originated very early in and was strongly conserved throughout the evolutionary history of terrestrial plants. Overall, our results are consistent with a model in which miRNA-based gene regulation evolved as part of a conserved plant “developmental toolkit.”
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Affiliation(s)
- Haiyan Jia
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
| | - Kelsey Aadland
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, University of California, Riverside, CA
| | - Oralia Kolaczkowski
- Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
| | - Bryan Kolaczkowski
- Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
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Pick L. Hox genes, evo-devo, and the case of the ftz gene. Chromosoma 2015; 125:535-51. [PMID: 26596987 DOI: 10.1007/s00412-015-0553-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2015] [Revised: 10/11/2015] [Accepted: 10/15/2015] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
The discovery of the broad conservation of embryonic regulatory genes across animal phyla, launched by the cloning of homeotic genes in the 1980s, was a founding event in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). While it had long been known that fundamental cellular processes, commonly referred to as housekeeping functions, are shared by animals and plants across the planet-processes such as the storage of information in genomic DNA, transcription, translation and the machinery for these processes, universal codon usage, and metabolic enzymes-Hox genes were different: mutations in these genes caused "bizarre" homeotic transformations of insect body parts that were certainly interesting but were expected to be idiosyncratic. The isolation of the genes responsible for these bizarre phenotypes turned out to be highly conserved Hox genes that play roles in embryonic patterning throughout Metazoa. How Hox genes have changed to promote the development of diverse body plans remains a central issue of the field of evo-devo today. For this Memorial article series, I review events around the discovery of the broad evolutionary conservation of Hox genes and the impact of this discovery on the field of developmental biology. I highlight studies carried out in Walter Gehring's lab and by former lab members that have continued to push the field forward, raising new questions and forging new approaches to understand the evolution of developmental mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leslie Pick
- Department of Entomology and Program in Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
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Singarete ME, Grizante MB, Milograna SR, Nery MF, Kin K, Wagner GP, Kohlsdorf T. Molecular evolution of HoxA13 and the multiple origins of limbless morphologies in amphibians and reptiles. Genet Mol Biol 2015; 38:255-62. [PMID: 26500429 PMCID: PMC4612600 DOI: 10.1590/s1415-475738320150039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2015] [Accepted: 04/23/2015] [Indexed: 03/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Developmental processes and their results, morphological characters, are inherited through transmission of genes regulating development. While there is ample evidence that cis-regulatory elements tend to be modular, with sequence segments dedicated to different roles, the situation for proteins is less clear, being particularly complex for transcription factors with multiple functions. Some motifs mediating protein-protein interactions may be exclusive to particular developmental roles, but it is also possible that motifs are mostly shared among different processes. Here we focus on HoxA13, a protein essential for limb development. We asked whether the HoxA13 amino acid sequence evolved similarly in three limbless clades: Gymnophiona, Amphisbaenia and Serpentes. We explored variation in ω (dN/dS) using a maximum-likelihood framework and HoxA13sequences from 47 species. Comparisons of evolutionary models provided low ω global values and no evidence that HoxA13 experienced relaxed selection in limbless clades. Branch-site models failed to detect evidence for positive selection acting on any site along branches of Amphisbaena and Gymnophiona, while three sites were identified in Serpentes. Examination of alignments did not reveal consistent sequence differences between limbed and limbless species. We conclude that HoxA13 has no modules exclusive to limb development, which may be explained by its involvement in multiple developmental processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marina E Singarete
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia Celular e Molecular, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular e Bioagentes Patogênicos, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
| | - Mariana B Grizante
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. ; Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
| | - Sarah R Milograna
- Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
| | - Mariana F Nery
- Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil. ; Departamento de Genética, Evolução e Bioagentes, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil
| | - Koryu Kin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Günter P Wagner
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. ; Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Yale Systems Biology Institute, Yale University, West Haven, CT, USA
| | - Tiana Kohlsdorf
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia Celular e Molecular, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular e Bioagentes Patogênicos, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil. ; Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
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Bozorgmehr JEH. The role of self-organization in developmental evolution. Theory Biosci 2014; 133:145-63. [PMID: 24737046 DOI: 10.1007/s12064-014-0200-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2013] [Accepted: 03/06/2014] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
In developmental and evolutionary biology, particular emphasis has been given to the relationship between transcription factors and the cognate cis-regulatory elements of their target genes. These constitute the gene regulatory networks that control expression and are assumed to causally determine the formation of structures and body plans. Comparative analysis has, however, established a broad sequence homology among species that nonetheless display quite different anatomies. Transgenic experiments have also confirmed that many developmentally important elements are, in fact, functionally interchangeable. Although dependent upon the appropriate degree of gene expression, the actual construction of specific structures appears not directly linked to the functions of gene products alone. Instead, the self-formation of complex patterns, due in large part to epigenetic and non-genetic determinants, remains a persisting theme in the study of ontogeny and regenerative medicine. Recent evidence indeed points to the existence of a self-organizing process, operating through a set of intrinsic rules and forces, which imposes coordination and a holistic order upon cells and tissue. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in experiments on regeneration as well as in the autonomous formation of structures in vitro. The process cannot be wholly attributed to the functional outcome of protein-protein interactions or to concentration gradients of diffusible chemicals. This phenomenon is examined here along with some of the methodological and theoretical approaches that are now used in understanding the causal basis for self-organization in development and its evolution.
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Rubinstein M, de Souza FSJ. Evolution of transcriptional enhancers and animal diversity. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2013; 368:20130017. [PMID: 24218630 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 63] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Deciphering the genetic bases that drive animal diversity is one of the major challenges of modern biology. Although four decades ago it was proposed that animal evolution was mainly driven by changes in cis-regulatory DNA elements controlling gene expression rather than in protein-coding sequences, only now are powerful bioinformatics and experimental approaches available to accelerate studies into how the evolution of transcriptional enhancers contributes to novel forms and functions. In the introduction to this Theme Issue, we start by defining the general properties of transcriptional enhancers, such as modularity and the coexistence of tight sequence conservation with transcription factor-binding site shuffling as different mechanisms that maintain the enhancer grammar over evolutionary time. We discuss past and current methods used to identify cell-type-specific enhancers and provide examples of how enhancers originate de novo, change and are lost in particular lineages. We then focus in the central part of this Theme Issue on analysing examples of how the molecular evolution of enhancers may change form and function. Throughout this introduction, we present the main findings of the articles, reviews and perspectives contributed to this Theme Issue that together illustrate some of the great advances and current frontiers in the field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcelo Rubinstein
- Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, , C1428ADN Buenos Aires, Argentina
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