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Nilsson P, Solbakken MH, Schmid BV, Orr RJS, Lv R, Cui Y, Song Y, Zhang Y, Baalsrud HT, Tørresen OK, Stenseth NC, Yang R, Jakobsen KS, Easterday WR, Jentoft S. The Genome of the Great Gerbil Reveals Species-Specific Duplication of an MHCII Gene. Genome Biol Evol 2020; 12:3832-3849. [PMID: 31971556 PMCID: PMC7046166 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evaa008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/13/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) is a social rodent living in permanent, complex burrow systems distributed throughout Central Asia, where it serves as the main host of several important vector-borne infectious pathogens including the well-known plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis). Here, we present a continuous annotated genome assembly of the great gerbil, covering over 96% of the estimated 2.47-Gb genome. Taking advantage of the recent genome assemblies of the sand rat (Psammomys obesus) and the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), comparative immunogenomic analyses reveal shared gene losses within TLR gene families (i.e., TLR8, TLR10, and the entire TLR11-subfamily) for Gerbillinae, accompanied with signs of diversifying selection of TLR7 and TLR9. Most notably, we find a great gerbil-specific duplication of the MHCII DRB locus. In silico analyses suggest that the duplicated gene provides high peptide binding affinity for Yersiniae epitopes as well as Leishmania and Leptospira epitopes, putatively leading to increased capability to withstand infections by these pathogens. Our study demonstrates the power of whole-genome sequencing combined with comparative genomic analyses to gain deeper insight into the immunogenomic landscape of the great gerbil and its close relatives.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pernille Nilsson
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Monica H Solbakken
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Boris V Schmid
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
| | | | - Ruichen Lv
- State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Beijing, China
| | - Yujun Cui
- State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Beijing, China
| | - Yajun Song
- State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Beijing, China
| | - Yujiang Zhang
- Xinjiang Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Urumqi, China
| | - Helle T Baalsrud
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Ole K Tørresen
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Nils Chr Stenseth
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Ruifu Yang
- State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Beijing, China
| | - Kjetill S Jakobsen
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - William Ryan Easterday
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Sissel Jentoft
- Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
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