1
|
Lin RC, Ferreira BT, Yuan YW. The molecular basis of phenotypic evolution: beyond the usual suspects. Trends Genet 2024; 40:668-680. [PMID: 38704304 PMCID: PMC11303103 DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2024.04.010] [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: 02/09/2024] [Revised: 04/15/2024] [Accepted: 04/17/2024] [Indexed: 05/06/2024]
Abstract
It has been well documented that mutations in coding DNA or cis-regulatory elements underlie natural phenotypic variation in many organisms. However, the development of sophisticated functional tools in recent years in a wide range of traditionally non-model systems have revealed many 'unusual suspects' in the molecular bases of phenotypic evolution, including upstream open reading frames (uORFs), cryptic splice sites, and small RNAs. Furthermore, large-scale genome sequencing, especially long-read sequencing, has identified a cornucopia of structural variation underlying phenotypic divergence and elucidated the composition of supergenes that control complex multi-trait polymorphisms. In this review article we highlight recent studies that demonstrate this great diversity of molecular mechanisms producing adaptive genetic variation and the panoply of evolutionary paths leading to the 'grandeur of life'.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Rong-Chien Lin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
| | - Bianca T Ferreira
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
| | - Yao-Wu Yuan
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Voelker J, Mauleon R, Shepherd M. A terpene synthase supergene locus determines chemotype in Melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree). THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2023; 240:1944-1960. [PMID: 37737003 DOI: 10.1111/nph.19262] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2023] [Accepted: 08/22/2023] [Indexed: 09/23/2023]
Abstract
Leaf oil terpenes vary categorically in many plant populations, leading to discrete phenotypes of adaptive and economic significance, but for most species, a genetic explanation for the concerted fluctuation in terpene chemistry remains unresolved. To uncover the genetic architecture underlying multi-component terpene chemotypes in Melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree), a genome-wide association study was undertaken for 148 individuals representing all six recognised chemotypes. A number of single nucleotide polymorphisms in a genomic region of c. 400 kb explained large proportions of the variation in key monoterpenes of tea tree oil. The region contained a cluster of 10 monoterpene synthase genes, including four genes predicted to encode synthases for 1,8-cineole, terpinolene, and the terpinen-4-ol precursor, sabinene hydrate. Chemotype-dependent null alleles at some sites suggested structural variants within this gene cluster, providing a possible basis for linkage disequilibrium in this region. Genotyping in a separate domesticated population revealed that all alleles surrounding this gene cluster were fixed after artificial selection for a single chemotype. These observations indicate that a supergene accounts for chemotypes in M. alternifolia. A genetic model with three haplotypes, encompassing the four characterised monoterpene synthase genes, explained the six terpene chemotypes, and was consistent with available biparental cross-segregation data.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Julia Voelker
- Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW, 2480, Australia
| | - Ramil Mauleon
- Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW, 2480, Australia
| | - Mervyn Shepherd
- Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW, 2480, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Gokhman VE. Chromosome study of the Hymenoptera (Insecta): from cytogenetics to cytogenomics. COMPARATIVE CYTOGENETICS 2023; 17:239-250. [PMID: 37953851 PMCID: PMC10632776 DOI: 10.3897/compcytogen.17.112332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2023] [Accepted: 10/19/2023] [Indexed: 11/14/2023]
Abstract
A brief overview of the current stage of the chromosome study of the insect order Hymenoptera is given. It is demonstrated that, in addition to routine staining and other traditional techniques of chromosome research, karyotypes of an increasing number of hymenopterans are being studied using molecular methods, e.g., staining with base-specific fluorochromes and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), including microdissection and chromosome painting. Due to the advent of whole genome sequencing and other molecular techniques, together with the "big data" approach to the chromosomal data, the current stage of the chromosome research on Hymenoptera represents a transition from Hymenoptera cytogenetics to cytogenomics.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Vladimir E. Gokhman
- Botanical Garden, Moscow State University, Moscow 119234, RussiaMoscow State UniversityMoscowRussia
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Enge S, Mérot C, Mozūraitis R, Apšegaitė V, Bernatchez L, Martens GA, Radžiutė S, Pavia H, Berdan EL. A supergene in seaweed flies modulates male traits and female perception. Proc Biol Sci 2023; 290:20231494. [PMID: 37817592 PMCID: PMC10565388 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1494] [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: 07/11/2023] [Accepted: 09/18/2023] [Indexed: 10/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Supergenes, tightly linked sets of alleles, offer some of the most spectacular examples of polymorphism persisting under long-term balancing selection. However, we still do not understand their evolution and persistence, especially in the face of accumulation of deleterious elements. Here, we show that an overdominant supergene in seaweed flies, Coelopa frigida, modulates male traits, potentially facilitating disassortative mating and promoting intraspecific polymorphism. Across two continents, the Cf-Inv(1) supergene strongly affected the composition of male cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) but only weakly affected CHC composition in females. Using gas chromatography-electroantennographic detection, we show that females can sense male CHCs and that there may be differential perception between genotypes. Combining our phenotypic results with RNA-seq data, we show that candidate genes for CHC biosynthesis primarily show differential expression for Cf-Inv(1) in males but not females. Conversely, candidate genes for odorant detection were differentially expressed in both sexes but showed high levels of divergence between supergene haplotypes. We suggest that the reduced recombination between supergene haplotypes may have led to rapid divergence in mate preferences as well as increasing linkage between male traits, and overdominant loci. Together this probably helped to maintain the polymorphism despite deleterious effects in homozygotes.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Swantje Enge
- Department of Marine Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Tjärnö, Sweden
| | - Claire Mérot
- Département de biologie, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval, Québec, Canada
- CNRS UMR 6553 Ecobio, Université de Rennes, OSUR, Rennes, France
| | - Raimondas Mozūraitis
- Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
- Laboratory of Chemical and Behavioural Ecology, Institute of Ecology, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
| | - Violeta Apšegaitė
- Laboratory of Chemical and Behavioural Ecology, Institute of Ecology, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
| | - Louis Bernatchez
- Département de biologie, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval, Québec, Canada
| | - Gerrit A. Martens
- Institute of Cell and Systems Biology of Animals, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Sandra Radžiutė
- Laboratory of Chemical and Behavioural Ecology, Institute of Ecology, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
| | - Henrik Pavia
- Department of Marine Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Tjärnö, Sweden
| | - Emma L. Berdan
- Department of Marine Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Tjärnö, Sweden
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Arnqvist G, Rowe L. Ecology, the pace-of-life, epistatic selection and the maintenance of genetic variation in life-history genes. Mol Ecol 2023; 32:4713-4724. [PMID: 37386734 DOI: 10.1111/mec.17062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2022] [Revised: 06/09/2023] [Accepted: 06/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/01/2023]
Abstract
Evolutionary genetics has long struggled with understanding how functional genes under selection remain polymorphic in natural populations. Taking as a starting point that natural selection is ultimately a manifestation of ecological processes, we spotlight an underemphasized and potentially ubiquitous ecological effect that may have fundamental effects on the maintenance of genetic variation. Negative frequency dependency is a well-established emergent property of density dependence in ecology, because the relative profitability of different modes of exploiting or utilizing limiting resources tends to be inversely proportional to their frequency in a population. We suggest that this may often generate negative frequency-dependent selection (NFDS) on major effect loci that affect rate-dependent physiological processes, such as metabolic rate, that are phenotypically manifested as polymorphism in pace-of-life syndromes. When such a locus under NFDS shows stable intermediate frequency polymorphism, this should generate epistatic selection potentially involving large numbers of loci with more minor effects on life-history (LH) traits. When alternative alleles at such loci show sign epistasis with a major effect locus, this associative NFDS will promote the maintenance of polygenic variation in LH genes. We provide examples of the kind of major effect loci that could be involved and suggest empirical avenues that may better inform us on the importance and reach of this process.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Göran Arnqvist
- Animal Ecology, Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Locke Rowe
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Swedish Collegium of Advanced Study, Uppsala, Sweden
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Vittorelli N, Rodríguez de la Vega RC, Snirc A, Levert E, Gautier V, Lalanne C, De Filippo E, Gladieux P, Guillou S, Zhang Y, Tejomurthula S, Grigoriev IV, Debuchy R, Silar P, Giraud T, Hartmann FE. Stepwise recombination suppression around the mating-type locus in an ascomycete fungus with self-fertile spores. PLoS Genet 2023; 19:e1010347. [PMID: 36763677 PMCID: PMC9949647 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2022] [Revised: 02/23/2023] [Accepted: 01/17/2023] [Indexed: 02/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Recombination is often suppressed at sex-determining loci in plants and animals, and at self-incompatibility or mating-type loci in plants and fungi. In fungal ascomycetes, recombination suppression around the mating-type locus is associated with pseudo-homothallism, i.e. the production of self-fertile dikaryotic sexual spores carrying the two opposite mating types. This has been well studied in two species complexes from different families of Sordariales: Podospora anserina and Neurospora tetrasperma. However, it is unclear whether this intriguing association holds in other species. We show here that Schizothecium tetrasporum, a fungus from a third family in the order Sordariales, also produces mostly self-fertile dikaryotic spores carrying the two opposite mating types. This was due to a high frequency of second meiotic division segregation at the mating-type locus, indicating the occurrence of a single and systematic crossing-over event between the mating-type locus and the centromere, as in P. anserina. The mating-type locus has the typical Sordariales organization, plus a MAT1-1-1 pseudogene in the MAT1-2 haplotype. High-quality genome assemblies of opposite mating types and segregation analyses revealed a suppression of recombination in a region of 1.47 Mb around the mating-type locus. We detected three evolutionary strata, indicating a stepwise extension of recombination suppression. The three strata displayed no rearrangement or transposable element accumulation but gene losses and gene disruptions were present, and precisely at the strata margins. Our findings indicate a convergent evolution of self-fertile dikaryotic sexual spores across multiple ascomycete fungi. The particular pattern of meiotic segregation at the mating-type locus was associated with recombination suppression around this locus, that had extended stepwise. This association between pseudo-homothallism and recombination suppression across lineages and the presence of gene disruption at the strata limits are consistent with a recently proposed mechanism of sheltering deleterious alleles to explain stepwise recombination suppression.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Nina Vittorelli
- Ecologie Systematique et Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
- Département de Biologie, École Normale Supérieure, PSL Université Paris, Paris, France
| | | | - Alodie Snirc
- Ecologie Systematique et Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Emilie Levert
- Ecologie Systematique et Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Valérie Gautier
- Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Christophe Lalanne
- Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Elsa De Filippo
- Ecologie Systematique et Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Pierre Gladieux
- PHIM Plant Health Institute, Univ Montpellier, INRAE, CIRAD, Institut Agro, IRD, Montpellier, France
| | - Sonia Guillou
- PHIM Plant Health Institute, Univ Montpellier, INRAE, CIRAD, Institut Agro, IRD, Montpellier, France
| | - Yu Zhang
- U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, United States of America
| | - Sravanthi Tejomurthula
- U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, United States of America
| | - Igor V. Grigoriev
- U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, United States of America
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America
| | - Robert Debuchy
- Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, CNRS, Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Philippe Silar
- Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Tatiana Giraud
- Ecologie Systematique et Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Fanny E. Hartmann
- Ecologie Systematique et Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| |
Collapse
|