1
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Frese AN, Mariossi A, Levine MS, Wühr M. Quantitative proteome dynamics across embryogenesis in a model chordate. iScience 2024; 27:109355. [PMID: 38510129 PMCID: PMC10951915 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2023] [Revised: 12/11/2023] [Accepted: 02/23/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024] Open
Abstract
The evolution of gene expression programs underlying the development of vertebrates remains poorly characterized. Here, we present a comprehensive proteome atlas of the model chordate Ciona, covering eight developmental stages and ∼7,000 translated genes, accompanied by a multi-omics analysis of co-evolution with the vertebrate Xenopus. Quantitative proteome comparisons argue against the widely held hourglass model, based solely on transcriptomic profiles, whereby peak conservation is observed during mid-developmental stages. Our analysis reveals maximal divergence at these stages, particularly gastrulation and neurulation. Together, our work provides a valuable resource for evaluating conservation and divergence of multi-omics profiles underlying the diversification of vertebrates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander N. Frese
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Andrea Mariossi
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Michael S. Levine
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Martin Wühr
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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2
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Mah JL, Dunn CW. Cell type evolution reconstruction across species through cell phylogenies of single-cell RNA sequencing data. Nat Ecol Evol 2024; 8:325-338. [PMID: 38182680 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02281-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 11/16/2023] [Indexed: 01/07/2024]
Abstract
The origin and evolution of cell types has emerged as a key topic in evolutionary biology. Driven by rapidly accumulating single-cell datasets, recent attempts to infer cell type evolution have largely been limited to pairwise comparisons because we lack approaches to build cell phylogenies using model-based approaches. Here we approach the challenges of applying explicit phylogenetic methods to single-cell data by using principal components as phylogenetic characters. We infer a cell phylogeny from a large, comparative single-cell dataset of eye cells from five distantly related mammals. Robust cell type clades enable us to provide a phylogenetic, rather than phenetic, definition of cell type, allowing us to forgo marker genes and phylogenetically classify cells by topology. We further observe evolutionary relationships between diverse vessel endothelia and identify the myelinating and non-myelinating Schwann cells as sister cell types. Finally, we examine principal component loadings and describe the gene expression dynamics underlying the function and identity of cell type clades that have been conserved across the five species. A cell phylogeny provides a rigorous framework towards investigating the evolutionary history of cells and will be critical to interpret comparative single-cell datasets that aim to ask fundamental evolutionary questions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jasmine L Mah
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
| | - Casey W Dunn
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
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3
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Haldar A, Oza VH, DeVoss NS, Clark AD, Lasseigne BN. CoSIA: an R Bioconductor package for CrOss Species Investigation and Analysis. Bioinformatics 2023; 39:btad759. [PMID: 38109675 PMCID: PMC10749757 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btad759] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2023] [Revised: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 12/16/2023] [Indexed: 12/20/2023] Open
Abstract
SUMMARY High-throughput sequencing technologies have enabled cross-species comparative transcriptomic studies; however, there are numerous challenges for these studies due to biological and technical factors. We developed CoSIA (Cross-Species Investigation and Analysis), a Bioconductor R package and Shiny app that provides an alternative framework for cross-species transcriptomic comparison of non-diseased wild-type RNA sequencing gene expression data from Bgee across tissues and species (human, mouse, rat, zebrafish, fly, and nematode) through visualization of variability, diversity, and specificity metrics. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION https://github.com/lasseignelab/CoSIA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anisha Haldar
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, United States
| | - Vishal H Oza
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, United States
| | - Nathaniel S DeVoss
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, United States
| | - Amanda D Clark
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, United States
| | - Brittany N Lasseigne
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, United States
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4
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Dimayacyac JR, Wu S, Jiang D, Pennell M. Evaluating the Performance of Widely Used Phylogenetic Models for Gene Expression Evolution. Genome Biol Evol 2023; 15:evad211. [PMID: 38000902 PMCID: PMC10709115 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evad211] [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: 01/08/2023] [Revised: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 11/17/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Phylogenetic comparative methods are increasingly used to test hypotheses about the evolutionary processes that drive divergence in gene expression among species. However, it is unknown whether the distributional assumptions of phylogenetic models designed for quantitative phenotypic traits are realistic for expression data and importantly, the reliability of conclusions of phylogenetic comparative studies of gene expression may depend on whether the data is well described by the chosen model. To evaluate this, we first fit several phylogenetic models of trait evolution to 8 previously published comparative expression datasets, comprising a total of 54,774 genes with 145,927 unique gene-tissue combinations. Using a previously developed approach, we then assessed how well the best model of the set described the data in an absolute (not just relative) sense. First, we find that Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models, in which expression values are constrained around an optimum, were the preferred models for 66% of gene-tissue combinations. Second, we find that for 61% of gene-tissue combinations, the best-fit model of the set was found to perform well; the rest were found to be performing poorly by at least one of the test statistics we examined. Third, we find that when simple models do not perform well, this appears to be typically a consequence of failing to fully account for heterogeneity in the rate of the evolution. We advocate that assessment of model performance should become a routine component of phylogenetic comparative expression studies; doing so can improve the reliability of inferences and inspire the development of novel models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jose Rafael Dimayacyac
- Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Shanyun Wu
- Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- Department of Developmental Biology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | - Daohan Jiang
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Matt Pennell
- Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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5
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Parey E, Fernandez-Aroca D, Frost S, Uribarren A, Park TJ, Zöttl M, St John Smith E, Berthelot C, Villar D. Phylogenetic modeling of enhancer shifts in African mole-rats reveals regulatory changes associated with tissue-specific traits. Genome Res 2023; 33:1513-1526. [PMID: 37625847 PMCID: PMC10620049 DOI: 10.1101/gr.277715.123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2023] [Accepted: 08/24/2023] [Indexed: 08/27/2023]
Abstract
Changes in gene regulation are thought to underlie most phenotypic differences between species. For subterranean rodents such as the naked mole-rat, proposed phenotypic adaptations include hypoxia tolerance, metabolic changes, and cancer resistance. However, it is largely unknown what regulatory changes may associate with these phenotypic traits, and whether these are unique to the naked mole-rat, the mole-rat clade, or are also present in other mammals. Here, we investigate regulatory evolution in the heart and liver from two African mole-rat species and two rodent outgroups using genome-wide epigenomic profiling. First, we adapted and applied a phylogenetic modeling approach to quantitatively compare epigenomic signals at orthologous regulatory elements and identified thousands of promoter and enhancer regions with differential epigenomic activity in mole-rats. These elements associate with known mole-rat adaptations in metabolic and functional pathways and suggest candidate genetic loci that may underlie mole-rat innovations. Second, we evaluated ancestral and species-specific regulatory changes in the study phylogeny and report several candidate pathways experiencing stepwise remodeling during the evolution of mole-rats, such as the insulin and hypoxia response pathways. Third, we report nonorthologous regulatory elements overlap with lineage-specific repetitive elements and appear to modify metabolic pathways by rewiring of HNF4 and RAR/RXR transcription factor binding sites in mole-rats. These comparative analyses reveal how mole-rat regulatory evolution informs previously reported phenotypic adaptations. Moreover, the phylogenetic modeling framework we propose here improves upon the state of the art by addressing known limitations of inter-species comparisons of epigenomic profiles and has broad implications in the field of comparative functional genomics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elise Parey
- Institut de Biologie de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure (IBENS), Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS, INSERM, Université PSL, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Diego Fernandez-Aroca
- Blizard Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 2AT, United Kingdom
| | - Stephanie Frost
- Blizard Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 2AT, United Kingdom
| | - Ainhoa Uribarren
- Cambridge Institute, Cancer Research UK and University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0RE, United Kingdom
| | - Thomas J Park
- Department of Biological Sciences and Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607, USA
| | - Markus Zöttl
- Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Linnaeus University, 44054 Kalmar, Sweden
| | - Ewan St John Smith
- Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PD, United Kingdom
| | - Camille Berthelot
- Institut de Biologie de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure (IBENS), Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS, INSERM, Université PSL, 75005 Paris, France;
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR 3525, INSERM UA12, Comparative Functional Genomics Group, F-75015 Paris, France
| | - Diego Villar
- Blizard Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 2AT, United Kingdom;
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6
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Jain A, Begum T, Ahmad S. Analysis and Prediction of Pathogen Nucleic Acid Specificity for Toll-like Receptors in Vertebrates. J Mol Biol 2023; 435:168208. [PMID: 37479078 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2023.168208] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2023] [Revised: 06/20/2023] [Accepted: 07/13/2023] [Indexed: 07/23/2023]
Abstract
Identification of key sequence, expression and function related features of nucleic acid-sensing host proteins is of fundamental importance to understand the dynamics of pathogen-specific host responses. To meet this objective, we considered toll-like receptors (TLRs), a representative class of membrane-bound sensor proteins, from 17 vertebrate species covering mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes in this comparative study. We identified the molecular signatures of host TLRs that are responsible for sensing pathogen nucleic acids or other pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), and potentially play important roles in host defence mechanism. Interestingly, our findings reveal that such host-specific features are directly related to the strand (single or double) specificity of nucleic acid from pathogens. However, during host-pathogen interactions, such features were unable to explain the pathogenic PAMP (i.e., DNA, RNA or other) selectivity, suggesting a more complex mechanism. Using these features, we developed a number of machine learning models, of which Random Forest achieved a high performance (94.57% accuracy) to predict strand specificity of TLRs from protein-derived features. We applied the trained model to propose strand specificity of some previously uncharacterized distinct fish-specific novel TLRs (TLR18, TLR23, TLR24, TLR25, TLR27).
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Affiliation(s)
- Anuja Jain
- School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India. https://twitter.com/@Anuja334
| | - Tina Begum
- School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India.
| | - Shandar Ahmad
- School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India.
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7
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Dimayacyac JR, Wu S, Jiang D, Pennell M. Evaluating the Performance of Widely Used Phylogenetic Models for Gene Expression Evolution. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.02.09.527893. [PMID: 37645857 PMCID: PMC10461906 DOI: 10.1101/2023.02.09.527893] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/31/2023]
Abstract
Phylogenetic comparative methods are increasingly used to test hypotheses about the evolutionary processes that drive divergence in gene expression among species. However, it is unknown whether the distributional assumptions of phylogenetic models designed for quantitative phenotypic traits are realistic for expression data and importantly, the reliability of conclusions of phylogenetic comparative studies of gene expression may depend on whether the data is well-described by the chosen model. To evaluate this, we first fit several phylogenetic models of trait evolution to 8 previously published comparative expression datasets, comprising a total of 54,774 genes with 145,927 unique gene-tissue combinations. Using a previously developed approach, we then assessed how well the best model of the set described the data in an absolute (not just relative) sense. First, we find that Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models, in which expression values are constrained around an optimum, were the preferred model for 66% of gene-tissue combinations. Second, we find that for 61% of gene-tissue combinations, the best fit model of the set was found to perform well; the rest were found to be performing poorly by at least one of the test statistics we examined. Third, we find that when simple models do not perform well, this appears to be typically a consequence of failing to fully account for heterogeneity in the rate of the evolution. We advocate that assessment of model performance should become a routine component of phylogenetic comparative expression studies; doing so can improve the reliability of inferences and inspire the development of novel models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jose Rafael Dimayacyac
- Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Canada
| | - Shanyun Wu
- Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Department of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine, USA
| | - Daohan Jiang
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, USA
| | - Matt Pennell
- Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, USA
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8
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Haldar A, Oza VH, DeVoss NS, Clark AD, Lasseigne BN. CoSIA: an R Bioconductor package for CrOss Species Investigation and Analysis. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.04.21.537877. [PMID: 37163017 PMCID: PMC10168259 DOI: 10.1101/2023.04.21.537877] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
High throughput sequencing technologies have enabled cross-species comparative transcriptomic studies; however, there are numerous challenges for these studies due to biological and technical factors. We developed CoSIA (Cross-Species Investigation and Analysis), an Bioconductor R package and Shiny app that provides an alternative framework for cross-species transcriptomic comparison of non-diseased wild-type RNA sequencing gene expression data from Bgee across tissues and species (human, mouse, rat, zebrafish, fly, and nematode) through visualization of variability, diversity, and specificity metrics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anisha Haldar
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
| | - Vishal H. Oza
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
| | - Nathaniel S. DeVoss
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
| | - Amanda D. Clark
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
| | - Brittany N. Lasseigne
- The Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
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9
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Belcour A, Got J, Aite M, Delage L, Collén J, Frioux C, Leblanc C, Dittami SM, Blanquart S, Markov GV, Siegel A. Inferring and comparing metabolism across heterogeneous sets of annotated genomes using AuCoMe. Genome Res 2023; 33:gr.277056.122. [PMID: 37468308 PMCID: PMC10629481 DOI: 10.1101/gr.277056.122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2022] [Accepted: 05/23/2023] [Indexed: 07/21/2023]
Abstract
Comparative analysis of genome-scale metabolic networks (GSMNs) may yield important information on the biology, evolution, and adaptation of species. However, it is impeded by the high heterogeneity of the quality and completeness of structural and functional genome annotations, which may bias the results of such comparisons. To address this issue, we developed AuCoMe, a pipeline to automatically reconstruct homogeneous GSMNs from a heterogeneous set of annotated genomes without discarding available manual annotations. We tested AuCoMe with three data sets, one bacterial, one fungal, and one algal, and showed that it successfully reduces technical biases while capturing the metabolic specificities of each organism. Our results also point out shared and divergent metabolic traits among evolutionarily distant algae, underlining the potential of AuCoMe to accelerate the broad exploration of metabolic evolution across the tree of life.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jeanne Got
- Univ Rennes, Inria, CNRS, IRISA, F-35000 Rennes, France
| | - Méziane Aite
- Univ Rennes, Inria, CNRS, IRISA, F-35000 Rennes, France
| | - Ludovic Delage
- Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Integrative Biology of Marine Models (LBI2M), Station Biologique de Roscoff (SBR), 29680 Roscoff, France
| | - Jonas Collén
- Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Integrative Biology of Marine Models (LBI2M), Station Biologique de Roscoff (SBR), 29680 Roscoff, France
| | | | - Catherine Leblanc
- Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Integrative Biology of Marine Models (LBI2M), Station Biologique de Roscoff (SBR), 29680 Roscoff, France
| | - Simon M Dittami
- Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Integrative Biology of Marine Models (LBI2M), Station Biologique de Roscoff (SBR), 29680 Roscoff, France
| | | | - Gabriel V Markov
- Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Integrative Biology of Marine Models (LBI2M), Station Biologique de Roscoff (SBR), 29680 Roscoff, France
| | - Anne Siegel
- Univ Rennes, Inria, CNRS, IRISA, F-35000 Rennes, France;
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10
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Feigin C, Li S, Moreno J, Mallarino R. The GRN concept as a guide for evolutionary developmental biology. JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY. PART B, MOLECULAR AND DEVELOPMENTAL EVOLUTION 2023; 340:92-104. [PMID: 35344632 PMCID: PMC9515236 DOI: 10.1002/jez.b.23132] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2021] [Revised: 03/08/2022] [Accepted: 03/11/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Organismal phenotypes result largely from inherited developmental programs, usually executed during embryonic and juvenile life stages. These programs are not blank slates onto which natural selection can draw arbitrary forms. Rather, the mechanisms of development play an integral role in shaping phenotypic diversity and help determine the evolutionary trajectories of species. Modern evolutionary biology must, therefore, account for these mechanisms in both theory and in practice. The gene regulatory network (GRN) concept represents a potent tool for achieving this goal whose utility has grown in tandem with advances in "omic" technologies and experimental techniques. However, while the GRN concept is widely utilized, it is often less clear what practical implications it has for conducting research in evolutionary developmental biology. In this Perspective, we attempt to provide clarity by discussing how experiments and projects can be designed in light of the GRN concept. We first map familiar biological notions onto the more abstract components of GRN models. We then review how diverse functional genomic approaches can be directed toward the goal of constructing such models and discuss current methods for functionally testing evolutionary hypotheses that arise from them. Finally, we show how the major steps of GRN model construction and experimental validation suggest generalizable workflows that can serve as a scaffold for project design. Taken together, the practical implications that we draw from the GRN concept provide a set of guideposts for studies aiming at unraveling the molecular basis of phenotypic diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charles Feigin
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA,School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Sha Li
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Jorge Moreno
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Ricardo Mallarino
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
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11
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Julca I, Tan QW, Mutwil M. Toward kingdom-wide analyses of gene expression. TRENDS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2023; 28:235-249. [PMID: 36344371 DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2022.09.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2022] [Revised: 09/22/2022] [Accepted: 09/30/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Gene expression data for Archaeplastida are accumulating exponentially, with more than 300 000 RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) experiments available for hundreds of species. The gene expression data stem from thousands of experiments that capture gene expression in various organs, tissues, cell types, (a)biotic perturbations, and genotypes. Advances in software tools make it possible to process all these data in a matter of weeks on modern office computers, giving us the possibility to study gene expression in a kingdom-wide manner for the first time. We discuss how the expression data can be accessed and processed and outline analyses that take advantage of cross-species analyses, allowing us to generate powerful and robust hypotheses about gene function and evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irene Julca
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637551, Singapore
| | - Qiao Wen Tan
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637551, Singapore
| | - Marek Mutwil
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637551, Singapore.
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12
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Bastide P, Soneson C, Stern DB, Lespinet O, Gallopin M. A Phylogenetic Framework to Simulate Synthetic Interspecies RNA-Seq Data. Mol Biol Evol 2023; 40:6889356. [PMID: 36508357 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msac269] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2021] [Revised: 11/14/2022] [Accepted: 12/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Interspecies RNA-Seq datasets are increasingly common, and have the potential to answer new questions about the evolution of gene expression. Single-species differential expression analysis is now a well-studied problem that benefits from sound statistical methods. Extensive reviews on biological or synthetic datasets have provided the community with a clear picture on the relative performances of the available methods in various settings. However, synthetic dataset simulation tools are still missing in the interspecies gene expression context. In this work, we develop and implement a new simulation framework. This tool builds on both the RNA-Seq and the phylogenetic comparative methods literatures to generate realistic count datasets, while taking into account the phylogenetic relationships between the samples. We illustrate the usefulness of this new framework through a targeted simulation study, that reproduces the features of a recently published dataset, containing gene expression data in adult eye tissue across blind and sighted freshwater crayfish species. Using our simulated datasets, we perform a fair comparison of several approaches used for differential expression analysis. This benchmark reveals some of the strengths and weaknesses of both the classical and phylogenetic approaches for interspecies differential expression analysis, and allows for a reanalysis of the crayfish dataset. The tool has been integrated in the R package compcodeR, freely available on Bioconductor.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul Bastide
- IMAG, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France
| | - Charlotte Soneson
- Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.,SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
| | - David B Stern
- Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
| | - Olivier Lespinet
- Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, CNRS, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Mélina Gallopin
- Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, CNRS, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
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13
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Breeschoten T, Schranz ME, Poelman EH, Simon S. Family dinner: Transcriptional plasticity of five Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) feeding on three host plant species. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e9258. [PMID: 36091341 PMCID: PMC9448971 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9258] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Polyphagous insects often show specialization in feeding on different host plants in terms of survival and growth and, therefore, can be considered minor or major pests of particular hosts. Whether polyphagous insects employ a common transcriptional response to cope with defenses from diverse host plants is under‐studied. We focused on patterns of transcriptional plasticity in polyphagous moths (Noctuidae), of which many species are notorious pests, in relation to herbivore performance on different host plants. We compared the transcriptional plasticity of five polyphagous moth species feeding and developing on three different host plant species. Using a comparative phylogenetic framework, we evaluated if successful herbivory, as measured by larval performance, is determined by a shared or lineage‐specific transcriptional response. The upregulated transcriptional activity, or gene expression pattern, of larvae feeding on the different host plants and artificial control diet was highly plastic and moth species‐specific. Specialization, defined as high herbivore success for specific host plants, was not generally linked to a lower number of induced genes. Moths that were more distantly related and showing high herbivore success for certain host plants showed shared expression of multiple homologous genes, indicating convergence. We further observed specific transcriptional responses within phylogenetic lineages. These expression patterns for specific host plant species are likely caused by shared evolutionary histories, for example, symplesiomorphic patterns, and could therefore not be associated with herbivore success alone. Multiple gene families, with roles in plant digestion and detoxification, were widely expressed in response to host plant feeding but again showed highly moth species‐specific. Consequently, high herbivore success for specific host plants is also driven by species‐specific transcriptional plasticity. Thus, potential pest moths display a complex and species‐specific transcriptional plasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thijmen Breeschoten
- Biosystematics Group Wageningen University & Research Wageningen The Netherlands
| | - M Eric Schranz
- Biosystematics Group Wageningen University & Research Wageningen The Netherlands
| | - Erik H Poelman
- Laboratory of Entomology Wageningen University & Research Wageningen The Netherlands
| | - Sabrina Simon
- Biosystematics Group Wageningen University & Research Wageningen The Netherlands
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14
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Detecting signatures of selection on gene expression. Nat Ecol Evol 2022; 6:1035-1045. [PMID: 35551249 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01761-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2021] [Accepted: 04/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
A substantial amount of phenotypic diversity results from changes in gene expression levels and patterns. Understanding how the transcriptome evolves is therefore a key priority in identifying mechanisms of adaptive change. However, in contrast to powerful models of sequence evolution, we lack a consensus model of gene expression evolution. Furthermore, recent work has shown that many of the comparative approaches used to study gene expression are subject to biases that can lead to false signatures of selection. Here we first outline the main approaches for describing expression evolution and their inherent biases. Next, we bridge the gap between the fields of phylogenetic comparative methods and transcriptomics to reinforce the main pitfalls of inferring selection on expression patterns and use simulation studies to show that shifts in tissue composition can heavily bias inferences of selection. We close by highlighting the multi-dimensional nature of transcriptional variation and identifying major unanswered questions in disentangling how selection acts on the transcriptome.
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15
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Mongiardino Koch N, Thompson JR, Hiley AS, McCowin MF, Armstrong AF, Coppard SE, Aguilera F, Bronstein O, Kroh A, Mooi R, Rouse GW. Phylogenomic analyses of echinoid diversification prompt a re-evaluation of their fossil record. eLife 2022; 11:72460. [PMID: 35315317 PMCID: PMC8940180 DOI: 10.7554/elife.72460] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2021] [Accepted: 03/03/2022] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Echinoids are key components of modern marine ecosystems. Despite a remarkable fossil record, the emergence of their crown group is documented by few specimens of unclear affinities, rendering their early history uncertain. The origin of sand dollars, one of its most distinctive clades, is also unclear due to an unstable phylogenetic context. We employ 18 novel genomes and transcriptomes to build a phylogenomic dataset with a near-complete sampling of major lineages. With it, we revise the phylogeny and divergence times of echinoids, and place their history within the broader context of echinoderm evolution. We also introduce the concept of a chronospace - a multidimensional representation of node ages - and use it to explore methodological decisions involved in time calibrating phylogenies. We find the choice of clock model to have the strongest impact on divergence times, while the use of site-heterogeneous models and alternative node prior distributions show minimal effects. The choice of loci has an intermediate impact, affecting mostly deep Paleozoic nodes, for which clock-like genes recover dates more congruent with fossil evidence. Our results reveal that crown group echinoids originated in the Permian and diversified rapidly in the Triassic, despite the relative lack of fossil evidence for this early diversification. We also clarify the relationships between sand dollars and their close relatives and confidently date their origins to the Cretaceous, implying ghost ranges spanning approximately 50 million years, a remarkable discrepancy with their rich fossil record.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolás Mongiardino Koch
- Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, United States.,Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, United States
| | - Jeffrey R Thompson
- Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom.,University College London Center for Life's Origins and Evolution, London, United Kingdom
| | - Avery S Hiley
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, United States
| | - Marina F McCowin
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, United States
| | - A Frances Armstrong
- Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, United States
| | - Simon E Coppard
- Bader International Study Centre, Queen's University, Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, United Kingdom
| | - Felipe Aguilera
- Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile
| | - Omri Bronstein
- School of Zoology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.,Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Andreas Kroh
- Department of Geology and Palaeontology, Natural History Museum Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Rich Mooi
- Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, United States
| | - Greg W Rouse
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, United States
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16
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Kopania EEK, Larson EL, Callahan C, Keeble S, Good JM. Molecular Evolution across Mouse Spermatogenesis. Mol Biol Evol 2022; 39:6517785. [PMID: 35099536 PMCID: PMC8844503 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msac023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Genes involved in spermatogenesis tend to evolve rapidly, but we lack a clear understanding of how protein sequences and patterns of gene expression evolve across this complex developmental process. We used fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) to generate expression data for early (meiotic) and late (postmeiotic) cell types across 13 inbred strains of mice (Mus) spanning ∼7 My of evolution. We used these comparative developmental data to investigate the evolution of lineage-specific expression, protein-coding sequences, and expression levels. We found increased lineage specificity and more rapid protein-coding and expression divergence during late spermatogenesis, suggesting that signatures of rapid testis molecular evolution are punctuated across sperm development. Despite strong overall developmental parallels in these components of molecular evolution, protein and expression divergences were only weakly correlated across genes. We detected more rapid protein evolution on the X chromosome relative to the autosomes, whereas X-linked gene expression tended to be relatively more conserved likely reflecting chromosome-specific regulatory constraints. Using allele-specific FACS expression data from crosses between four strains, we found that the relative contributions of different regulatory mechanisms also differed between cell types. Genes showing cis-regulatory changes were more common late in spermatogenesis, and tended to be associated with larger differences in expression levels and greater expression divergence between species. In contrast, genes with trans-acting changes were more common early and tended to be more conserved across species. Our findings advance understanding of gene evolution across spermatogenesis and underscore the fundamental importance of developmental context in molecular evolutionary studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily E K Kopania
- Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA
| | - Erica L Larson
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Denver, Denver, CO, 80208, USA
| | - Colin Callahan
- Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA
| | - Sara Keeble
- Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA
| | - Jeffrey M Good
- Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA
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17
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Field JT, Abrams AJ, Cartee JC, McTavish EJ. Rapid alignment updating with Extensiphy. Methods Ecol Evol 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.13790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jasper Toscani Field
- Quantitative and Systems Biology Program School of Natural Sciences University of California Merced CA USA
| | - A. Jeanine Abrams
- Division of STD Prevention National Centers for HIV/AIDS Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention Atlanta GA USA
| | - John C. Cartee
- Division of STD Prevention National Centers for HIV/AIDS Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention Atlanta GA USA
| | - Emily Jane McTavish
- Life and Environmental Sciences Department School of Natural Sciences University of California Merced CA USA
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18
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Ko KY, Chen CY, Juan HF, Huang HC. Phylotranscriptomic patterns of network stochasticity and pathway dynamics during embryogenesis. Bioinformatics 2022; 38:763-769. [PMID: 34677580 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btab735] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2020] [Revised: 09/30/2021] [Accepted: 10/19/2021] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION The hourglass model is a popular evo-devo model depicting that the developmental constraints in the middle of a developmental process are higher, and hence the phenotypes are evolutionarily more conserved, than those that occur in early and late ontogeny stages. Although this model has been supported by studies analyzing developmental gene expression data, the evolutionary explanation and molecular mechanism behind this phenomenon are not fully understood yet. To approach this problem, Raff proposed a hypothesis and claimed that higher interconnectivity among elements in an organism during organogenesis resulted in the larger constraints at the mid-developmental stage. By employing stochastic network analysis and gene-set pathway analysis, we aim to demonstrate such changes of interconnectivity claimed in Raff's hypothesis. RESULTS We first compared the changes of network randomness among developmental processes in different species by measuring the stochasticity within the biological network in each developmental stage. By tracking the network entropy along each developmental process, we found that the network stochasticity follows an anti-hourglass trajectory, and such a pattern supports Raff's hypothesis in dynamic changes of interconnections among biological modules during development. To understand which biological functions change during the transition of network stochasticity, we sketched out the pathway dynamics along the developmental stages and found that species may activate similar groups of biological processes across different stages. Moreover, higher interspecies correlations are found at the mid-developmental stages. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kuei-Yueh Ko
- Genome and Systems Biology Degree Program, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan.,Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Program, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Cho-Yi Chen
- Institute of Biomedical Informatics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei 112, Taiwan
| | - Hsueh-Fen Juan
- Genome and Systems Biology Degree Program, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan.,Department of Life Science, Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, Center for Computational and Systems Biology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan
| | - Hsuan-Cheng Huang
- Institute of Biomedical Informatics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei 112, Taiwan
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19
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Harrison BR, Hoffman JM, Samuelson A, Raftery D, Promislow DEL. Modular Evolution of the Drosophila Metabolome. Mol Biol Evol 2022; 39:msab307. [PMID: 34662414 PMCID: PMC8760934 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab307] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Comparative phylogenetic studies offer a powerful approach to study the evolution of complex traits. Although much effort has been devoted to the evolution of the genome and to organismal phenotypes, until now relatively little work has been done on the evolution of the metabolome, despite the fact that it is composed of the basic structural and functional building blocks of all organisms. Here we explore variation in metabolite levels across 50 My of evolution in the genus Drosophila, employing a common garden design to measure the metabolome within and among 11 species of Drosophila. We find that both sex and age have dramatic and evolutionarily conserved effects on the metabolome. We also find substantial evidence that many metabolite pairs covary after phylogenetic correction, and that such metabolome coevolution is modular. Some of these modules are enriched for specific biochemical pathways and show different evolutionary trajectories, with some showing signs of stabilizing selection. Both observations suggest that functional relationships may ultimately cause such modularity. These coevolutionary patterns also differ between sexes and are affected by age. We explore the relevance of modular evolution to fitness by associating modules with lifespan variation measured in the same common garden. We find several modules associated with lifespan, particularly in the metabolome of older flies. Oxaloacetate levels in older females appear to coevolve with lifespan, and a lifespan-associated module in older females suggests that metabolic associations could underlie 50 My of lifespan evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin R Harrison
- Department of Lab Medicine & Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Jessica M Hoffman
- Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - Ariana Samuelson
- Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Daniel Raftery
- Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Daniel E L Promislow
- Department of Lab Medicine & Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
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20
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Gene family evolution underlies cell-type diversification in the hypothalamus of teleosts. Nat Ecol Evol 2022; 6:63-76. [PMID: 34824389 PMCID: PMC10387363 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01580-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2020] [Accepted: 10/04/2021] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
Hundreds of cell types form the vertebrate brain but it is largely unknown how similar cellular repertoires are between or within species or how cell-type diversity evolves. To examine cell-type diversity across and within species, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing of ~130,000 hypothalamic cells from zebrafish (Danio rerio) and surface and cave morphs of Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus). We found that over 75% of cell types were shared between zebrafish and Mexican tetra, which diverged from a common ancestor over 150 million years ago. Shared cell types displayed shifts in paralogue expression that were generated by subfunctionalization after genome duplication. Expression of terminal effector genes, such as neuropeptides, was more conserved than the expression of their associated transcriptional regulators. Species-specific cell types were enriched for the expression of species-specific genes and characterized by the neofunctionalization of expression patterns of members of recently expanded or contracted gene families. Comparisons between surface and cave morphs revealed differences in immune repertoires and transcriptional changes in neuropeptidergic cell types associated with genomic differences. The single-cell atlases presented here are a powerful resource to explore hypothalamic cell types and reveal how gene family evolution and shifts in paralogue expression contribute to cellular diversity.
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21
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OUP accepted manuscript. Syst Biol 2022; 71:973-985. [DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/syac014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2021] [Revised: 02/15/2022] [Accepted: 02/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
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22
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Begum T, Serrano‐Serrano ML, Robinson‐Rechavi M. Performance of a phylogenetic independent contrast method and an improved pairwise comparison under different scenarios of trait evolution after speciation and duplication. Methods Ecol Evol 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.13680] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Tina Begum
- Department of Ecology and Evolution University of Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics Lausanne Switzerland
| | - Martha Liliana Serrano‐Serrano
- Department of Ecology and Evolution University of Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics Lausanne Switzerland
| | - Marc Robinson‐Rechavi
- Department of Ecology and Evolution University of Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics Lausanne Switzerland
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23
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Begum T, Robinson-Rechavi M. Special Care Is Needed in Applying Phylogenetic Comparative Methods to Gene Trees with Speciation and Duplication Nodes. Mol Biol Evol 2021; 38:1614-1626. [PMID: 33169790 PMCID: PMC8042747 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaa288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
How gene function evolves is a central question of evolutionary biology. It can be investigated by comparing functional genomics results between species and between genes. Most comparative studies of functional genomics have used pairwise comparisons. Yet it has been shown that this can provide biased results, as genes, like species, are phylogenetically related. Phylogenetic comparative methods should be used to correct for this, but they depend on strong assumptions, including unbiased tree estimates relative to the hypothesis being tested. Such methods have recently been used to test the “ortholog conjecture,” the hypothesis that functional evolution is faster in paralogs than in orthologs. Although pairwise comparisons of tissue specificity (τ) provided support for the ortholog conjecture, phylogenetic independent contrasts did not. Our reanalysis on the same gene trees identified problems with the time calibration of duplication nodes. We find that the gene trees used suffer from important biases, due to the inclusion of trees with no duplication nodes, to the relative age of speciations and duplications, to systematic differences in branch lengths, and to non-Brownian motion of tissue specificity on many trees. We find that incorrect implementation of phylogenetic method in empirical gene trees with duplications can be problematic. Controlling for biases allows successful use of phylogenetic methods to study the evolution of gene function and provides some support for the ortholog conjecture using three different phylogenetic approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tina Begum
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.,SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Marc Robinson-Rechavi
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.,SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
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24
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Pasquesi GIM, Perry BW, Vandewege MW, Ruggiero RP, Schield DR, Castoe TA. Vertebrate Lineages Exhibit Diverse Patterns of Transposable Element Regulation and Expression across Tissues. Genome Biol Evol 2021; 12:506-521. [PMID: 32271917 PMCID: PMC7211425 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evaa068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Transposable elements (TEs) comprise a major fraction of vertebrate genomes, yet little is known about their expression and regulation across tissues, and how this varies across major vertebrate lineages. We present the first comparative analysis integrating TE expression and TE regulatory pathway activity in somatic and gametic tissues for a diverse set of 12 vertebrates. We conduct simultaneous gene and TE expression analyses to characterize patterns of TE expression and TE regulation across vertebrates and examine relationships between these features. We find remarkable variation in the expression of genes involved in TE negative regulation across tissues and species, yet consistently high expression in germline tissues, particularly in testes. Most vertebrates show comparably high levels of TE regulatory pathway activity across gonadal tissues except for mammals, where reduced activity of TE regulatory pathways in ovarian tissues may be the result of lower relative germ cell densities. We also find that all vertebrate lineages examined exhibit remarkably high levels of TE-derived transcripts in somatic and gametic tissues, with recently active TE families showing higher expression in gametic tissues. Although most TE-derived transcripts originate from inactive ancient TE families (and are likely incapable of transposition), such high levels of TE-derived RNA in the cytoplasm may have secondary, unappreciated biological relevance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia I M Pasquesi
- Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington.,Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder
| | - Blair W Perry
- Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington
| | | | | | - Drew R Schield
- Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington.,Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder
| | - Todd A Castoe
- Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington
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25
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Chan ME, Bhamidipati PS, Goldsby HJ, Hintze A, Hofmann HA, Young RL. Comparative Transcriptomics Reveals Distinct Patterns of Gene Expression Conservation through Vertebrate Embryogenesis. Genome Biol Evol 2021; 13:6319027. [PMID: 34247223 PMCID: PMC8358226 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evab160] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/02/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite life's diversity, studies of variation often remind us of our shared evolutionary past. Abundant genome sequencing and analyses of gene regulatory networks illustrate that genes and entire pathways are conserved, reused, and elaborated in the evolution of diversity. Predating these discoveries, 19th-century embryologists observed that though morphology at birth varies tremendously, certain stages of vertebrate embryogenesis appear remarkably similar across vertebrates. In the mid to late 20th century, anatomical variability of early and late-stage embryos and conservation of mid-stages embryos (the "phylotypic" stage) was named the hourglass model of diversification. This model has found mixed support in recent analyses comparing gene expression across species possibly owing to differences in species, embryonic stages, and gene sets compared. We compare 186 microarray and RNA-seq data sets covering embryogenesis in six vertebrate species. We use an unbiased clustering approach to group stages of embryogenesis by transcriptomic similarity and ask whether gene expression similarity of clustered embryonic stages deviates from a null expectation. We characterize expression conservation patterns of each gene at each evolutionary node after correcting for phylogenetic nonindependence. We find significant enrichment of genes exhibiting early conservation, hourglass, late conservation patterns in both microarray and RNA-seq data sets. Enrichment of genes showing patterned conservation through embryogenesis indicates diversification of embryogenesis may be temporally constrained. However, the circumstances under which each pattern emerges remain unknown and require both broad evolutionary sampling and systematic examination of embryogenesis across species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Megan E Chan
- Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.,Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA
| | - Pranav S Bhamidipati
- Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.,Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA
| | - Heather J Goldsby
- Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
| | - Arend Hintze
- Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
| | - Hans A Hofmann
- Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.,Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.,Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Institute for Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA
| | - Rebecca L Young
- Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.,Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA
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26
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Tanay A, Sebé-Pedrós A. Evolutionary Cell Type Mapping with Single-Cell Genomics. Trends Genet 2021; 37:919-932. [PMID: 34020820 DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2021.04.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2021] [Revised: 04/15/2021] [Accepted: 04/17/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
A fundamental characteristic of animal multicellularity is the spatial coexistence of functionally specialized cell types that are all encoded by a single genome sequence. Cell type transcriptional programs are deployed and maintained by regulatory mechanisms that control the asymmetric, differential access to genomic information in each cell. This genome regulation ultimately results in specific cellular phenotypes. However, the emergence, diversity, and evolutionary dynamics of animal cell types remain almost completely unexplored beyond a few species. Single-cell genomics is emerging as a powerful tool to build comprehensive catalogs of cell types and their associated gene regulatory programs in non-traditional model species. We review the current state of sampling efforts across the animal tree of life and challenges ahead for the comparative study of cell type programs. We also discuss how the phylogenetic integration of cell atlases can lead to the development of models of cell type evolution and a phylogenetic taxonomy of cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amos Tanay
- Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and Department of Biological Regulation, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.
| | - Arnau Sebé-Pedrós
- Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Barcelona, Spain; Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona 08003, Spain.
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27
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Chak STC, Baeza JA, Barden P. Eusociality Shapes Convergent Patterns of Molecular Evolution across Mitochondrial Genomes of Snapping Shrimps. Mol Biol Evol 2021; 38:1372-1383. [PMID: 33211078 PMCID: PMC8480187 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaa297] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Eusociality is a highly conspicuous and ecologically impactful behavioral syndrome that has evolved independently across multiple animal lineages. So far, comparative genomic analyses of advanced sociality have been mostly limited to insects. Here, we study the only clade of animals known to exhibit eusociality in the marine realm-lineages of socially diverse snapping shrimps in the genus Synalpheus. To investigate the molecular impact of sociality, we assembled the mitochondrial genomes of eight Synalpheus species that represent three independent origins of eusociality and analyzed patterns of molecular evolution in protein-coding genes. Synonymous substitution rates are lower and potential signals of relaxed purifying selection are higher in eusocial relative to noneusocial taxa. Our results suggest that mitochondrial genome evolution was shaped by eusociality-linked traits-extended generation times and reduced effective population sizes that are hallmarks of advanced animal societies. This is the first direct evidence of eusociality impacting genome evolution in marine taxa. Our results also strongly support the idea that eusociality can shape genome evolution through profound changes in life history and demography.
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Affiliation(s)
- Solomon T C Chak
- Department of Biological Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ
- Department of Biological Sciences, SUNY College at Old Westbury, Old Westbury, NY
| | - Juan Antonio Baeza
- Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce, Fort Pierce, FL
- Departamento de Biología Marina, Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo, Chile
| | - Phillip Barden
- Department of Biological Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ
- Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY
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28
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Ahrens JB, Teufel AI, Siltberg-Liberles J. A Phylogenetic Rate Parameter Indicates Different Sequence Divergence Patterns in Orthologs and Paralogs. J Mol Evol 2020; 88:720-730. [PMID: 33118098 DOI: 10.1007/s00239-020-09969-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2020] [Accepted: 10/15/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Heterotachy-the change in sequence evolutionary rate over time-is a common feature of protein molecular evolution. Decades of studies have shed light on the conditions under which heterotachy occurs, and there is evidence that site-specific evolutionary rate shifts are correlated with changes in protein function. Here, we present a large-scale, computational analysis using thousands of protein sequence alignments from animal and plant proteomes, representing genes related either by orthology (speciation events) or paralogy (gene duplication), to compare sequence divergence patterns in orthologous vs. paralogous sequence alignments. We use sequence-based phylogenetic analyses to infer overall sequence divergence (tree length/number of sequences) and to fit site-specific rates to a discrete gamma distribution with a shape parameter α. This inference method is applied to real protein sequence alignments, as well as alignments simulated under various models of protein sequence evolution. Our simulations indicate that sequence divergence and the α parameter are positively correlated when sequences evolve with heterotachy, meaning that inferred site rate distributions appear more uniform as sequences diverge. Divergence and α are also positively correlated in both orthologous and paralogous genes, but the average increase in α (as a function of divergence) is significantly higher in paralogous protein alignments than in orthologous alignments. This result is consistent with the widely held view that recently duplicated proteins initially evolve under relaxed selective pressure, promoting functional divergence by accumulation of amino acid replacements, and hence experience more evolutionary rate fluctuations than orthologous proteins. We discuss these findings in the context of the ortholog conjecture, a long-standing assumption in molecular evolution, which posits that protein sequences related by orthology tend to be more functionally conserved than paralogous proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph B Ahrens
- Department of Biological Sciences, Biomolecular Sciences Institute, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA. .,Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Computational Bioscience Program, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO, USA.
| | - Ashley I Teufel
- Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas At Austin, Austin, TX, USA.,Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA
| | - Jessica Siltberg-Liberles
- Department of Biological Sciences, Biomolecular Sciences Institute, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA.
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29
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Plachetzki DC, Pankey MS, MacManes MD, Lesser MP, Walker CW. The Genome of the Softshell Clam Mya arenaria and the Evolution of Apoptosis. Genome Biol Evol 2020; 12:1681-1693. [PMID: 32653903 PMCID: PMC7531772 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evaa143] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/06/2020] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Apoptosis is a fundamental feature of multicellular animals and is best understood in mammals, flies, and nematodes, with the invertebrate models being thought to represent a condition of ancestral simplicity. However, the existence of a leukemia-like cancer in the softshell clam Mya arenaria provides an opportunity to re-evaluate the evolution of the genetic machinery of apoptosis. Here, we report the whole-genome sequence for M. arenaria which we leverage with existing data to test evolutionary hypotheses on the origins of apoptosis in animals. We show that the ancestral bilaterian p53 locus, a master regulator of apoptosis, possessed a complex domain structure, in contrast to that of extant ecdysozoan p53s. Further, ecdysozoan taxa, but not chordates or lophotrochozoans like M. arenaria, show a widespread reduction in apoptosis gene copy number. Finally, phylogenetic exploration of apoptosis gene copy number reveals a striking linkage with p53 domain complexity across species. Our results challenge the current understanding of the evolution of apoptosis and highlight the ancestral complexity of the bilaterian apoptotic tool kit and its subsequent dismantlement during the ecdysozoan radiation.
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Affiliation(s)
- David C Plachetzki
- Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire
| | - M Sabrina Pankey
- Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire
| | - Matthew D MacManes
- Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire
| | - Michael P Lesser
- Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire
- School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering, University of New Hampshire
| | - Charles W Walker
- Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire
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30
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Li Y, Omori A, Flores RL, Satterfield S, Nguyen C, Ota T, Tsurugaya T, Ikuta T, Ikeo K, Kikuchi M, Leong JCK, Reich A, Hao M, Wan W, Dong Y, Ren Y, Zhang S, Zeng T, Uesaka M, Uchida Y, Li X, Shibata TF, Bino T, Ogawa K, Shigenobu S, Kondo M, Wang F, Chen L, Wessel G, Saiga H, Cameron RA, Livingston B, Bradham C, Wang W, Irie N. Genomic insights of body plan transitions from bilateral to pentameral symmetry in Echinoderms. Commun Biol 2020; 3:371. [PMID: 32651448 PMCID: PMC7351957 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-1091-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2019] [Accepted: 06/19/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Echinoderms are an exceptional group of bilaterians that develop pentameral adult symmetry from a bilaterally symmetric larva. However, the genetic basis in evolution and development of this unique transformation remains to be clarified. Here we report newly sequenced genomes, developmental transcriptomes, and proteomes of diverse echinoderms including the green sea urchin (L. variegatus), a sea cucumber (A. japonicus), and with particular emphasis on a sister group of the earliest-diverged echinoderms, the feather star (A. japonica). We learned that the last common ancestor of echinoderms retained a well-organized Hox cluster reminiscent of the hemichordate, and had gene sets involved in endoskeleton development. Further, unlike in other animal groups, the most conserved developmental stages were not at the body plan establishing phase, and genes normally involved in bilaterality appear to function in pentameric axis development. These results enhance our understanding of the divergence of protostomes and deuterostomes almost 500 Mya. Li et al. investigate the evolution and genetic basis of the adult pentameral body plan in echinoderms using genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data. They determine that the last common ancestor of echinoderms contained an organized Hox cluster and endoskeleton genes, and suggest that cooption of bilateral development genes was involved in evolution of the pentameric body plan.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongxin Li
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
| | - Akihito Omori
- Sado Island Center for Ecological Sustainability, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan
| | - Rachel L Flores
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, California State Univesity, Long Beach, CA, USA
| | - Sheri Satterfield
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, California State Univesity, Long Beach, CA, USA
| | - Christine Nguyen
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, California State Univesity, Long Beach, CA, USA
| | | | | | - Tetsuro Ikuta
- Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Kanagawa, Japan.,Tokyo Metropolitan University, Yokosuka, Tokyo, Japan
| | | | | | - Jason C K Leong
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Adrian Reich
- Providence Institute of Molecular Oogenesis, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
| | - Meng Hao
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
| | - Wenting Wan
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
| | - Yang Dong
- Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China
| | - Yaondong Ren
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
| | - Si Zhang
- Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
| | - Tao Zeng
- Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
| | - Masahiro Uesaka
- RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR), Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
| | - Yui Uchida
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.,Universal Biology Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Xueyan Li
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
| | - Tomoko F Shibata
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Takahiro Bino
- NIBB Core Research Facilities, National Institute of Basic Biology, Okazaki, Aichi, Japan
| | - Kota Ogawa
- Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
| | - Shuji Shigenobu
- NIBB Core Research Facilities, National Institute of Basic Biology, Okazaki, Aichi, Japan
| | - Mariko Kondo
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Fayou Wang
- Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
| | - Luonan Chen
- Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.,Key Laboratory of Systems Biology, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, China
| | - Gary Wessel
- Providence Institute of Molecular Oogenesis, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
| | - Hidetoshi Saiga
- Tokyo Metropolitan University, Yokosuka, Tokyo, Japan.,Dept. of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.,Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - R Andrew Cameron
- Beckman Institute, Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Brian Livingston
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, California State Univesity, Long Beach, CA, USA
| | | | - Wen Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China. .,School of Ecology and Environment, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
| | - Naoki Irie
- Dept. of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. .,Universal Biology Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
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31
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Stamboulian M, Guerrero RF, Hahn MW, Radivojac P. The ortholog conjecture revisited: the value of orthologs and paralogs in function prediction. Bioinformatics 2020; 36:i219-i226. [PMID: 32657391 PMCID: PMC7355290 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa468] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION The computational prediction of gene function is a key step in making full use of newly sequenced genomes. Function is generally predicted by transferring annotations from homologous genes or proteins for which experimental evidence exists. The 'ortholog conjecture' proposes that orthologous genes should be preferred when making such predictions, as they evolve functions more slowly than paralogous genes. Previous research has provided little support for the ortholog conjecture, though the incomplete nature of the data cast doubt on the conclusions. RESULTS We use experimental annotations from over 40 000 proteins, drawn from over 80 000 publications, to revisit the ortholog conjecture in two pairs of species: (i) Homo sapiens and Mus musculus and (ii) Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe. By making a distinction between questions about the evolution of function versus questions about the prediction of function, we find strong evidence against the ortholog conjecture in the context of function prediction, though questions about the evolution of function remain difficult to address. In both pairs of species, we quantify the amount of information that would be ignored if paralogs are discarded, as well as the resulting loss in prediction accuracy. Taken as a whole, our results support the view that the types of homologs used for function transfer are largely irrelevant to the task of function prediction. Maximizing the amount of data used for this task, regardless of whether it comes from orthologs or paralogs, is most likely to lead to higher prediction accuracy. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION https://github.com/predragradivojac/oc. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moses Stamboulian
- Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Rafael F Guerrero
- Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
| | - Matthew W Hahn
- Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
- Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Predrag Radivojac
- Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
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32
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Termignoni-Garcia F, Louder MIM, Balakrishnan CN, O’Connell L, Edwards SV. Prospects for sociogenomics in avian cooperative breeding and parental care. Curr Zool 2020; 66:293-306. [PMID: 32440290 PMCID: PMC7233861 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoz057] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2019] [Accepted: 11/20/2019] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
For the last 40 years, the study of cooperative breeding (CB) in birds has proceeded primarily in the context of discovering the ecological, geographical, and behavioral drivers of helping. The advent of molecular tools in the early 1990s assisted in clarifying the relatedness of helpers to those helped, in some cases, confirming predictions of kin selection theory. Methods for genome-wide analysis of sequence variation, gene expression, and epigenetics promise to add new dimensions to our understanding of avian CB, primarily in the area of molecular and developmental correlates of delayed breeding and dispersal, as well as the ontogeny of achieving parental status in nature. Here, we outline key ways in which modern -omics approaches, in particular genome sequencing, transcriptomics, and epigenetic profiling such as ATAC-seq, can be used to add a new level of analysis of avian CB. Building on recent and ongoing studies of avian social behavior and sociogenomics, we review how high-throughput sequencing of a focal species or clade can provide a robust foundation for downstream, context-dependent destructive and non-destructive sampling of specific tissues or physiological states in the field for analysis of gene expression and epigenetics. -Omics approaches have the potential to inform not only studies of the diversification of CB over evolutionary time, but real-time analyses of behavioral interactions in the field or lab. Sociogenomics of birds represents a new branch in the network of methods used to study CB, and can help clarify ways in which the different levels of analysis of CB ultimately interact in novel and unexpected ways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Flavia Termignoni-Garcia
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Matthew I M Louder
- International Research Center for Neurointelligence, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
| | | | - Lauren O’Connell
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Scott V Edwards
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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33
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Anderson JA, Vilgalys TP, Tung J. Broadening primate genomics: new insights into the ecology and evolution of primate gene regulation. Curr Opin Genet Dev 2020; 62:16-22. [PMID: 32569794 PMCID: PMC7483836 DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2020.05.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2020] [Revised: 05/05/2020] [Accepted: 05/06/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Comparative analyses have played a key role in understanding how gene regulatory evolution contributes to primate phenotypic diversity. Recently, these studies have expanded to include a wider range of species, within-population as well as interspecific analyses, and research on wild as well as captive individuals. This expansion provides context for understanding genetic and environmental effects on gene regulation in humans, including the importance of the pathogen and social environments. Although taxonomic representation remains biased, inclusion of more species has also begun to reveal the evolutionary processes that explain whether and when gene regulation is conserved. Together, this work highlights how studies in other primates contribute to understanding evolution in our own lineage, and we conclude by identifying promising avenues for future work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jordan A Anderson
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
| | - Tauras P Vilgalys
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Medicine, Section of Genetic Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA
| | - Jenny Tung
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi 00502, Kenya; Duke Population Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
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34
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Cope AL, O'Meara BC, Gilchrist MA. Gene expression of functionally-related genes coevolves across fungal species: detecting coevolution of gene expression using phylogenetic comparative methods. BMC Genomics 2020; 21:370. [PMID: 32434474 PMCID: PMC7240986 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-020-6761-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2020] [Accepted: 04/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Researchers often measure changes in gene expression across conditions to better understand the shared functional roles and regulatory mechanisms of different genes. Analogous to this is comparing gene expression across species, which can improve our understanding of the evolutionary processes shaping the evolution of both individual genes and functional pathways. One area of interest is determining genes showing signals of coevolution, which can also indicate potential functional similarity, analogous to co-expression analysis often performed across conditions for a single species. However, as with any trait, comparing gene expression across species can be confounded by the non-independence of species due to shared ancestry, making standard hypothesis testing inappropriate. RESULTS We compared RNA-Seq data across 18 fungal species using a multivariate Brownian Motion phylogenetic comparative method (PCM), which allowed us to quantify coevolution between protein pairs while directly accounting for the shared ancestry of the species. Our work indicates proteins which physically-interact show stronger signals of coevolution than randomly-generated pairs. Interactions with stronger empirical and computational evidence also showing stronger signals of coevolution. We examined the effects of number of protein interactions and gene expression levels on coevolution, finding both factors are overall poor predictors of the strength of coevolution between a protein pair. Simulations further demonstrate the potential issues of analyzing gene expression coevolution without accounting for shared ancestry in a standard hypothesis testing framework. Furthermore, our simulations indicate the use of a randomly-generated null distribution as a means of determining statistical significance for detecting coevolving genes with phylogenetically-uncorrected correlations, as has previously been done, is less accurate than PCMs, although is a significant improvement over standard hypothesis testing. These methods are further improved by using a phylogenetically-corrected correlation metric. CONCLUSIONS Our work highlights potential benefits of using PCMs to detect gene expression coevolution from high-throughput omics scale data. This framework can be built upon to investigate other evolutionary hypotheses, such as changes in transcription regulatory mechanisms across species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander L Cope
- Genome Science and Technology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.
- Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.
| | - Brian C O'Meara
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
- National Institute of Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Michael A Gilchrist
- Genome Science and Technology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
- National Institute of Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
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35
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Swain TD, Lax S, Backman V, Marcelino LA. Uncovering the role of Symbiodiniaceae assemblage composition and abundance in coral bleaching response by minimizing sampling and evolutionary biases. BMC Microbiol 2020; 20:124. [PMID: 32429833 PMCID: PMC7236918 DOI: 10.1186/s12866-020-01765-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2019] [Accepted: 03/26/2020] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Biodiversity and productivity of coral-reef ecosystems depend upon reef-building corals and their associations with endosymbiotic Symbiodiniaceae, which offer diverse functional capabilities to their hosts. The number of unique symbiotic partners (richness) and relative abundances (evenness) have been hypothesized to affect host response to climate change induced thermal stress. Symbiodiniaceae assemblages with many unique phylotypes may provide greater physiological flexibility or form less stable symbioses; assemblages with low abundance phylotypes may allow corals to retain thermotolerant symbionts or represent associations with less-suitable symbionts. RESULTS Here we demonstrate that true richness of Symbiodiniaceae phylotype assemblages is generally not discoverable from direct enumeration of unique phylotypes in association records and that cross host-species comparisons are biased by sampling and evolutionary patterns among species. These biases can be minimized through rarefaction of richness (rarefied-richness) and evenness (Probability of Interspecific Encounter, PIE), and analyses that account for phylogenetic patterns. These standardized metrics were calculated for individual Symbiodiniaceae assemblages composed of 377 unique ITS2 phylotypes associated with 123 coral species. Rarefied-richness minimized correlations with sampling effort, while maintaining important underlying characteristics across host bathymetry and geography. Phylogenetic comparative methods reveal significant increases in coral bleaching and mortality associated with increasing Symbiodiniaceae assemblage richness and evenness at the level of host species. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that the potential flexibility afforded by assemblages characterized by many phylotypes present at similar relative abundances does not result in decreased bleaching risk and point to the need to characterize the overall functional and genetic diversity of Symbiodiniaceae assemblages to quantify their effect on host fitness under climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timothy D Swain
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
- Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, 60605, USA
- Department of Marine and Environmental Science, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, FL, 33004, USA
| | - Simon Lax
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA
- Physics of Living Systems, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Vadim Backman
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Luisa A Marcelino
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
- Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, 60605, USA.
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36
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Laurent JM, Garge RK, Teufel AI, Wilke CO, Kachroo AH, Marcotte EM. Humanization of yeast genes with multiple human orthologs reveals functional divergence between paralogs. PLoS Biol 2020; 18:e3000627. [PMID: 32421706 PMCID: PMC7259792 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000627] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2019] [Revised: 05/29/2020] [Accepted: 04/14/2020] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite over a billion years of evolutionary divergence, several thousand human genes possess clearly identifiable orthologs in yeast, and many have undergone lineage-specific duplications in one or both lineages. These duplicated genes may have been free to diverge in function since their expansion, and it is unclear how or at what rate ancestral functions are retained or partitioned among co-orthologs between species and within gene families. Thus, in order to investigate how ancestral functions are retained or lost post-duplication, we systematically replaced hundreds of essential yeast genes with their human orthologs from gene families that have undergone lineage-specific duplications, including those with single duplications (1 yeast gene to 2 human genes, 1:2) or higher-order expansions (1:>2) in the human lineage. We observe a variable pattern of replaceability across different ortholog classes, with an obvious trend toward differential replaceability inside gene families, and rarely observe replaceability by all members of a family. We quantify the ability of various properties of the orthologs to predict replaceability, showing that in the case of 1:2 orthologs, replaceability is predicted largely by the divergence and tissue-specific expression of the human co-orthologs, i.e., the human proteins that are less diverged from their yeast counterpart and more ubiquitously expressed across human tissues more often replace their single yeast ortholog. These trends were consistent with in silico simulations demonstrating that when only one ortholog can replace its corresponding yeast equivalent, it tends to be the least diverged of the pair. Replaceability of yeast genes having more than 2 human co-orthologs was marked by retention of orthologous interactions in functional or protein networks as well as by more ancestral subcellular localization. Overall, we performed >400 human gene replaceability assays, revealing 50 new human-yeast complementation pairs, thus opening up avenues to further functionally characterize these human genes in a simplified organismal context.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jon M. Laurent
- Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
- Institute for Systems Genetics, NYU Langone Health, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Riddhiman K. Garge
- Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
- Department of Molecular Biosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
| | - Ashley I. Teufel
- Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
- Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States of America
| | - Claus O. Wilke
- Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
- Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
| | - Aashiq H. Kachroo
- The Department of Biology, Centre for Applied Synthetic Biology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Edward M. Marcotte
- Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
- Department of Molecular Biosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
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37
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Smith SD, Pennell MW, Dunn CW, Edwards SV. Phylogenetics is the New Genetics (for Most of Biodiversity). Trends Ecol Evol 2020; 35:415-425. [DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.01.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2019] [Revised: 01/15/2020] [Accepted: 01/20/2020] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
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38
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David KT, Oaks JR, Halanych KM. Patterns of gene evolution following duplications and speciations in vertebrates. PeerJ 2020; 8:e8813. [PMID: 32266119 PMCID: PMC7120047 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.8813] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2019] [Accepted: 02/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Eukaryotic genes typically form independent evolutionary lineages through either speciation or gene duplication events. Generally, gene copies resulting from speciation events (orthologs) are expected to maintain similarity over time with regard to sequence, structure and function. After a duplication event, however, resulting gene copies (paralogs) may experience a broader set of possible fates, including partial (subfunctionalization) or complete loss of function, as well as gain of new function (neofunctionalization). This assumption, known as the Ortholog Conjecture, is prevalent throughout molecular biology and notably plays an important role in many functional annotation methods. Unfortunately, studies that explicitly compare evolutionary processes between speciation and duplication events are rare and conflicting. METHODS To provide an empirical assessment of ortholog/paralog evolution, we estimated ratios of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions (ω = dN/dS) for 251,044 lineages in 6,244 gene trees across 77 vertebrate taxa. RESULTS Overall, we found ω to be more similar between lineages descended from speciation events (p < 0.001) than lineages descended from duplication events, providing strong support for the Ortholog Conjecture. The asymmetry in ω following duplication events appears to be largely driven by an increase along one of the paralogous lineages, while the other remains similar to the parent. This trend is commonly associated with neofunctionalization, suggesting that gene duplication is a significant mechanism for generating novel gene functions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kyle T. David
- Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
| | - Jamie R. Oaks
- Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
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39
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Deline B, Thompson JR, Smith NS, Zamora S, Rahman IA, Sheffield SL, Ausich WI, Kammer TW, Sumrall CD. Evolution and Development at the Origin of a Phylum. Curr Biol 2020; 30:1672-1679.e3. [PMID: 32197083 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.02.054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2019] [Revised: 01/24/2020] [Accepted: 02/18/2020] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Quantifying morphological evolution is key to determining the patterns and processes underlying the origin of phyla. We constructed a hierarchical morphological character matrix to characterize the radiation and establishment of echinoderm body plans during the early Paleozoic. This showed that subphylum-level clades diverged gradually through the Cambrian, and the distinctiveness of the resulting body plans was amplified by the extinction of transitional forms and obscured by convergent evolution during the Ordovician. Higher-order characters that define these body plans were not fixed at the origin of the phylum, countering hypotheses regarding developmental processes governing the early evolution of animals. Instead, these burdened characters were flexible, enabling continued evolutionary innovation throughout the clades' history.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bradley Deline
- Department of Geoscience, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, USA.
| | - Jeffrey R Thompson
- Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Nicholas S Smith
- Department of Geoscience, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, USA; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
| | - Samuel Zamora
- Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, 50006 Zaragoza, Spain; Grupo Aragosaurus-IUCA, Área de Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50006 Zaragoza, Spain
| | - Imran A Rahman
- Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford OX1 3PW, UK
| | - Sarah L Sheffield
- School of Geosciences, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
| | - William I Ausich
- School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Thomas W Kammer
- Department of Geology and Geography, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
| | - Colin D Sumrall
- Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
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40
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Winnikoff JR, Francis WR, Thuesen EV, Haddock SHD. Combing Transcriptomes for Secrets of Deep-Sea Survival: Environmental Diversity Drives Patterns of Protein Evolution. Integr Comp Biol 2019; 59:786-798. [PMID: 31141128 PMCID: PMC6797910 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icz063] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Ctenophores, also known as comb jellies, live across extremely broad ranges of temperature and hydrostatic pressure in the ocean. Because various ctenophore lineages adapted independently to similar environmental conditions, Phylum Ctenophora is an ideal system for the study of protein adaptation to extreme environments in a comparative framework. We present such a study here, using a phylogenetically-informed method to compare sequences of four essential metabolic enzymes across gradients of habitat depth and temperature. This method predicts convergent adaptation to these environmental parameters at the amino acid level, providing a novel view of protein adaptation to extreme environments and demonstrating the power and relevance of phylogenetic comparison applied to multi-species transcriptomic datasets from early-diverging metazoa. Across all four enzymes analyzed, 46 amino acid sites were associated with depth-adaptation, 59 with temperature-adaptation, and 56 with both. Sites predicted to be depth- and temperature-adaptive occurred consistently near Rossmann fold cofactor binding motifs and disproportionately in solvent-exposed regions of the protein. These results suggest that the hydrophobic effect and ligand binding may mediate efficient enzyme function at different hydrostatic pressures and temperatures. Using predicted adaptive site maps, such mechanistic hypotheses can now be tested via mutagenesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- J R Winnikoff
- Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, 7700 Sandholdt Rd., Moss Landing, CA 95039, USA
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California at Santa Cruz, 130 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA
| | - W R Francis
- Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense, Denmark
| | - E V Thuesen
- The Evergreen State College, Laboratory I, Olympia, WA 98505, USA
| | - S H D Haddock
- Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, 7700 Sandholdt Rd., Moss Landing, CA 95039, USA
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California at Santa Cruz, 130 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA
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41
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Comparative Phylogenomics, a Stepping Stone for Bird Biodiversity Studies. DIVERSITY-BASEL 2019. [DOI: 10.3390/d11070115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
Birds are a group with immense availability of genomic resources, and hundreds of forthcoming genomes at the doorstep. We review recent developments in whole genome sequencing, phylogenomics, and comparative genomics of birds. Short read based genome assemblies are common, largely due to efforts of the Bird 10K genome project (B10K). Chromosome-level assemblies are expected to increase due to improved long-read sequencing. The available genomic data has enabled the reconstruction of the bird tree of life with increasing confidence and resolution, but challenges remain in the early splits of Neoaves due to their explosive diversification after the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) event. Continued genomic sampling of the bird tree of life will not just better reflect their evolutionary history but also shine new light onto the organization of phylogenetic signal and conflict across the genome. The comparatively simple architecture of avian genomes makes them a powerful system to study the molecular foundation of bird specific traits. Birds are on the verge of becoming an extremely resourceful system to study biodiversity from the nucleotide up.
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42
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Erkenbrack EM, Thompson JR. Cell type phylogenetics informs the evolutionary origin of echinoderm larval skeletogenic cell identity. Commun Biol 2019; 2:160. [PMID: 31069269 PMCID: PMC6499829 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-019-0417-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2018] [Accepted: 04/04/2019] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
The multiplicity of cell types comprising multicellular organisms begs the question as to how cell type identities evolve over time. Cell type phylogenetics informs this question by comparing gene expression of homologous cell types in distantly related taxa. We employ this approach to inform the identity of larval skeletogenic cells of echinoderms, a clade for which there are phylogenetically diverse datasets of spatial gene expression patterns. We determined ancestral spatial expression patterns of alx1, ets1, tbr, erg, and vegfr, key components of the skeletogenic gene regulatory network driving identity of the larval skeletogenic cell. Here we show ancestral state reconstructions of spatial gene expression of extant eleutherozoan echinoderms support homology and common ancestry of echinoderm larval skeletogenic cells. We propose larval skeletogenic cells arose in the stem lineage of eleutherozoans during a cell type duplication event that heterochronically activated adult skeletogenic cells in a topographically distinct tissue in early development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric M. Erkenbrack
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 USA
- Yale Systems Biology Institute, Yale University, West Haven, CT 06516 USA
| | - Jeffrey R. Thompson
- Department of Geosciences, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76706 USA
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740 USA
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43
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Nikolov LA, Shushkov P, Nevado B, Gan X, Al-Shehbaz IA, Filatov D, Bailey CD, Tsiantis M. Resolving the backbone of the Brassicaceae phylogeny for investigating trait diversity. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2019; 222:1638-1651. [PMID: 30735246 DOI: 10.1111/nph.15732] [Citation(s) in RCA: 71] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2018] [Accepted: 01/10/2019] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
The Brassicaceae family comprises c. 4000 species including economically important crops and the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Despite their importance, the relationships among major lineages in the family remain unresolved, hampering comparative research. Here, we inferred a Brassicaceae phylogeny using newly generated targeted enrichment sequence data of 1827 exons (> 940 000 bases) representing 63 species, as well as sequenced genome data of 16 species, together representing 50 of the 52 currently recognized Brassicaceae tribes. A third of the samples were derived from herbarium material, facilitating broad taxonomic coverage of the family. Six major clades formed successive sister groups to the rest of Brassicaceae. We also recovered strong support for novel relationships among tribes, and resolved the position of 16 taxa previously not assigned to a tribe. The broad utility of these phylogenetic results is illustrated through a comparative investigation of genome-wide expression signatures that distinguish simple from complex leaves in Brassicaceae. Our study provides an easily extendable dataset for further advances in Brassicaceae systematics and a timely higher-level phylogenetic framework for a wide range of comparative studies of multiple traits in an intensively investigated group of plants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lachezar A Nikolov
- Department of Comparative Development and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, 50829, Germany
| | - Philip Shushkov
- Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
| | - Bruno Nevado
- Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3RB, UK
| | - Xiangchao Gan
- Department of Comparative Development and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, 50829, Germany
| | - Ihsan A Al-Shehbaz
- Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St Louis, MO, 63110, USA
| | - Dmitry Filatov
- Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3RB, UK
| | - C Donovan Bailey
- Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, 88003, USA
| | - Miltos Tsiantis
- Department of Comparative Development and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, 50829, Germany
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44
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Fernandez-Valverde SL, Aguilera F, Ramos-Díaz RA. Inference of Developmental Gene Regulatory Networks Beyond Classical Model Systems: New Approaches in the Post-genomic Era. Integr Comp Biol 2019; 58:640-653. [PMID: 29917089 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icy061] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The advent of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies has revolutionized the way we understand the transformation of genetic information into morphological traits. Elucidating the network of interactions between genes that govern cell differentiation through development is one of the core challenges in genome research. These networks are known as developmental gene regulatory networks (dGRNs) and consist largely of the functional linkage between developmental control genes, cis-regulatory modules, and differentiation genes, which generate spatially and temporally refined patterns of gene expression. Over the last 20 years, great advances have been made in determining these gene interactions mainly in classical model systems, including human, mouse, sea urchin, fruit fly, and worm. This has brought about a radical transformation in the fields of developmental biology and evolutionary biology, allowing the generation of high-resolution gene regulatory maps to analyze cell differentiation during animal development. Such maps have enabled the identification of gene regulatory circuits and have led to the development of network inference methods that can recapitulate the differentiation of specific cell-types or developmental stages. In contrast, dGRN research in non-classical model systems has been limited to the identification of developmental control genes via the candidate gene approach and the characterization of their spatiotemporal expression patterns, as well as to the discovery of cis-regulatory modules via patterns of sequence conservation and/or predicted transcription-factor binding sites. However, thanks to the continuous advances in HTS technologies, this scenario is rapidly changing. Here, we give a historical overview on the architecture and elucidation of the dGRNs. Subsequently, we summarize the approaches available to unravel these regulatory networks, highlighting the vast range of possibilities of integrating multiple technical advances and theoretical approaches to expand our understanding on the global gene regulation during animal development in non-classical model systems. Such new knowledge will not only lead to greater insights into the evolution of molecular mechanisms underlying cell identity and animal body plans, but also into the evolution of morphological key innovations in animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Selene L Fernandez-Valverde
- CONACYT, Unidad de Genómica Avanzada, Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad (Langebio), Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
| | - Felipe Aguilera
- Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Concepción, Chile
| | - René Alexander Ramos-Díaz
- CONACYT, Unidad de Genómica Avanzada, Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad (Langebio), Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
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Sackton TB. Comparative genomics and transcriptomics of host-pathogen interactions in insects: evolutionary insights and future directions. CURRENT OPINION IN INSECT SCIENCE 2019; 31:106-113. [PMID: 31109663 DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2018.12.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2018] [Revised: 12/21/2018] [Accepted: 12/22/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Classical evolutionary studies of protein-coding genes have established that genes in the canonical immune system are often among the most rapidly evolving within and between species. As more genomes and transcriptomes across insects are sequenced, it is becoming clear that duplications and losses of immune genes are also a likely consequence of host-pathogen interactions. Furthermore, particular species respond to diverse pathogenic challenges with a wide range of challenge-specific responses that are still poorly understood. Transcriptional studies, using RNA-seq to characterize the infection-regulated transcriptome of diverse insects, are crucial for additional progress in understanding the ecology and evolution of the full complexity of the host response.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timothy B Sackton
- Informatics Group, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States.
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46
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Uesaka M, Kuratani S, Takeda H, Irie N. Recapitulation-like developmental transitions of chromatin accessibility in vertebrates. ZOOLOGICAL LETTERS 2019; 5:33. [PMID: 31807314 PMCID: PMC6857340 DOI: 10.1186/s40851-019-0148-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2019] [Accepted: 11/06/2019] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
The relationship between development and evolution has been a central theme in evolutionary developmental biology. Across the vertebrates, the most highly conserved gene expression profiles are found at mid-embryonic, organogenesis stages, whereas those at earlier and later stages are more diverged. This hourglass-like pattern of divergence does not necessarily rule out the possibility that gene expression profiles that are more evolutionarily derived appear at later stages of development; however, no molecular-level evidence of such a phenomenon has been reported. To address this issue, we compared putative gene regulatory elements among different species within a phylum. We made a genome-wide assessment of accessible chromatin regions throughout embryogenesis in three vertebrate species (mouse, chicken, and medaka) and estimated the evolutionary ages of these regions to define their evolutionary origins on the phylogenetic tree. In all the three species, we found that genomic regions tend to become accessible in an order that parallels their phylogenetic history, with evolutionarily newer gene regulations activated at later developmental stages. This tendency was restricted only after the mid-embryonic, phylotypic periods. Our results imply a phylogenetic hierarchy of putative regulatory regions, in which their activation parallels the phylogenetic order of their appearance. One evolutionary mechanism that may explain this phenomenon is that newly introduced regulatory elements are more likely to survive if activated at later stages of embryogenesis. Possible relationships between this phenomenon and the so-called recapitulation are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Masahiro Uesaka
- Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR), Kobe, Japan
| | - Shigeru Kuratani
- Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR), Kobe, Japan
- Evolutionary Morphology Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR), Kobe, Japan
| | - Hiroyuki Takeda
- Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Universal Biology Institute, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Naoki Irie
- Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Universal Biology Institute, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
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47
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Irie N, Satoh N, Kuratani S. The phylum Vertebrata: a case for zoological recognition. ZOOLOGICAL LETTERS 2018; 4:32. [PMID: 30607258 PMCID: PMC6307173 DOI: 10.1186/s40851-018-0114-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2018] [Accepted: 12/05/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
The group Vertebrata is currently placed as a subphylum in the phylum Chordata, together with two other subphyla, Cephalochordata (lancelets) and Urochordata (ascidians). The past three decades, have seen extraordinary advances in zoological taxonomy and the time is now ripe for reassessing whether the subphylum position is truly appropriate for vertebrates, particularly in light of recent advances in molecular phylogeny, comparative genomics, and evolutionary developmental biology. Four lines of current research are discussed here. First, molecular phylogeny has demonstrated that Deuterostomia comprises Ambulacraria (Echinodermata and Hemichordata) and Chordata (Cephalochordata, Urochordata, and Vertebrata), each clade being recognized as a mutually comparable phylum. Second, comparative genomic studies show that vertebrates alone have experienced two rounds of whole-genome duplication, which makes the composition of their gene family unique. Third, comparative gene-expression profiling of vertebrate embryos favors an hourglass pattern of development, the most conserved stage of which is recognized as a phylotypic period characterized by the establishment of a body plan definitively associated with a phylum. This mid-embryonic conservation is supported robustly in vertebrates, but only weakly in chordates. Fourth, certain complex patterns of body plan formation (especially of the head, pharynx, and somites) are recognized throughout the vertebrates, but not in any other animal groups. For these reasons, we suggest that it is more appropriate to recognize vertebrates as an independent phylum, not as a subphylum of the phylum Chordata.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naoki Irie
- Department of Biological Sciences, School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-0033 Japan
- Universal Biology Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-0033 Japan
| | - Noriyuki Satoh
- Marine Genomics Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, 904-0495 Japan
| | - Shigeru Kuratani
- Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, and Evolutionary Morphology Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research, 2-2-3 Minatojima-minami, Chuo-ku, Kobe, 650-0047 Japan
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48
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Blischak PD, Mabry ME, Conant GC, Pires JC. Integrating Networks, Phylogenomics, and Population Genomics for the Study of Polyploidy. ANNUAL REVIEW OF ECOLOGY EVOLUTION AND SYSTEMATICS 2018. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-121415-032302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Duplication events are regarded as sources of evolutionary novelty, but our understanding of general trends for the long-term trajectory of additional genomic material is still lacking. Organisms with a history of whole genome duplication (WGD) offer a unique opportunity to study potential trends in the context of gene retention and/or loss, gene and network dosage, and changes in gene expression. In this review, we discuss the prevalence of polyploidy across the tree of life, followed by an overview of studies investigating genome evolution and gene expression. We then provide an overview of methods in network biology, phylogenomics, and population genomics that are critical for advancing our understanding of evolution post-WGD, highlighting the need for models that can accommodate polyploids. Finally, we close with a brief note on the importance of random processes in the evolution of polyploids with respect to neutral versus selective forces, ancestral polymorphisms, and the formation of autopolyploids versus allopolyploids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul D. Blischak
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
| | - Makenzie E. Mabry
- Division of Biological Sciences and Bond Life Sciences Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
| | - Gavin C. Conant
- Division of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
- Current affiliation: Bioinformatics Research Center, Program in Genetics and Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, USA
| | - J. Chris Pires
- Division of Biological Sciences and Bond Life Sciences Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211-7310, USA
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49
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Gildor T, Smadar BTDL. Comparative Studies of Gene Expression Kinetics: Methodologies and Insights on Development and Evolution. Front Genet 2018; 9:339. [PMID: 30186312 PMCID: PMC6113378 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00339] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2018] [Accepted: 08/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Across the animal kingdom, embryos of closely related species show high morphological similarity despite genetic and environmental distances. Deciphering the molecular mechanisms that underlie morphological conservation and those that support embryonic adaptation are keys to understand developmental robustness and evolution. Comparative studies of developmental gene regulatory networks can track the genetic changes that lead to evolutionary novelties. However, these studies are limited to a relatively small set of genes and demand extensive experimental efforts. An alternative approach enabled by next-generation sequencing, is to compare the expression kinetic of large sets of genes between different species. The advantages of these comparisons are that they can be done relatively easily, for any species and they provide information of all expressed genes. The challenge in these experiments is to compare the kinetic profiles of thousands of genes between species that develop in different rates. Here we review recent comparative studies that tackled the challenges of accurate staging and large-scale analyses using different computational approaches. These studies reveal how correct temporal scaling exposes the striking conservation of developmental gene expression between morphologically similar species. Different clustering approaches are used to address various comparative questions and identify the conservation and divergence of large gene sets. We discuss the unexpected contribution of housekeeping genes to the interspecies correlations and how this contribution distorts the hourglass pattern generated by developmental genes. Overall, we demonstrate how comparative studies of gene expression kinetics can provide novel insights into the developmental constraints and plasticity that shape animal body plans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tsvia Gildor
- Department of Marine Biology, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
| | - Ben-Tabou de-Leon Smadar
- Department of Marine Biology, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
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50
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Liu J, Robinson-Rechavi M. Developmental Constraints on Genome Evolution in Four Bilaterian Model Species. Genome Biol Evol 2018; 10:2266-2277. [PMID: 30137380 PMCID: PMC6130771 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evy177] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/17/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Developmental constraints on genome evolution have been suggested to follow either an early conservation model or an "hourglass" model. Both models agree that late development strongly diverges between species, but debate on which developmental period is the most conserved. Here, based on a modified "Transcriptome Age Index" approach, that is, weighting trait measures by expression level, we analyzed the constraints acting on three evolutionary traits of protein coding genes (strength of purifying selection on protein sequences, phyletic age, and duplicability) in four species: Nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, fly Drosophila melanogaster, zebrafish Danio rerio, and mouse Mus musculus. In general, we found that both models can be supported by different genomic properties. Sequence evolution follows an hourglass model, but the evolution of phyletic age and of duplicability follow an early conservation model. Further analyses indicate that stronger purifying selection on sequences in the middle development are driven by temporal pleiotropy of these genes. In addition, we report evidence that expression in late development is enriched with retrogenes, which usually lack efficient regulatory elements. This implies that expression in late development could facilitate transcription of new genes, and provide opportunities for acquisition of function. Finally, in C. elegans, we suggest that dosage imbalance could be one of the main factors that cause depleted expression of high duplicability genes in early development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jialin Liu
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Marc Robinson-Rechavi
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
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