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Huynh TV, Hall AS, Xu S. The transcriptomic signature of cyclical parthenogenesis. Genome Biol Evol 2023:evad122. [PMID: 37392457 PMCID: PMC10340444 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evad122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2022] [Revised: 06/13/2023] [Accepted: 06/28/2023] [Indexed: 07/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Cyclical parthenogenesis, where females can engage in sexual or asexual reproduction depending on environmental conditions, represents a novel reproductive phenotype that emerged during eukaryotic evolution. The fact that environmental conditions can trigger cyclical parthenogens to engage in distinct reproductive modes strongly suggests that gene expression plays a key role in the origin of cyclical parthenogenesis. However, the genetic basis underlying cyclical parthenogenesis remains understudied. In this study we characterize the female transcriptomic signature of sexual vs. asexual reproduction in the cyclically parthenogenetic microcrustacean Daphnia pulex and D. pulicaria. Our analyses of differentially expressed genes, pathway enrichment, and GO term enrichment clearly show that compared to sexual reproduction the asexual reproductive stage is characterized by both the under-regulation of meiosis and cell-cycle genes and the up-regulation of metabolic genes. The consensus set of differentially expressed genes that this study identifies within the meiotic, cell-cycle, and metabolic pathways serve as candidate genes for future studies investigating how the two reproductive cycles in cyclical parthenogenesis are mediated at a molecular level. Furthermore, our analyses identify some cases of divergent expression among gene family members (e.g., doublesex, NOTCH2) associated with asexual or sexual reproductive stage, suggesting potential functional divergence among gene family members.
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Affiliation(s)
- Trung Viet Huynh
- Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, 76019, USA
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Warren WC, García-Pérez R, Xu S, Lampert KP, Chalopin D, Stöck M, Loewe L, Lu Y, Kuderna L, Minx P, Montague MJ, Tomlinson C, Hillier LW, Murphy DN, Wang J, Wang Z, Garcia CM, Thomas GWC, Volff JN, Farias F, Aken B, Walter RB, Pruitt KD, Marques-Bonet T, Hahn MW, Kneitz S, Lynch M, Schartl M. Clonal polymorphism and high heterozygosity in the celibate genome of the Amazon molly. Nat Ecol Evol 2018; 2:669-679. [PMID: 29434351 PMCID: PMC5866774 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0473-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 76] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2017] [Accepted: 01/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
The extreme rarity of asexual vertebrates in nature is generally explained by genomic decay due to absence of meiotic recombination, thus leading to extinction of such lineages. We explore features of a vertebrate asexual genome, the Amazon molly, Poecilia formosa, and find few signs of genetic degeneration but unique genetic variability and ongoing evolution. We uncovered a substantial clonal polymorphism and, as a conserved feature from its interspecific hybrid origin, a 10-fold higher heterozygosity than in the sexual parental species. These characteristics seem to be a principal reason for the unpredicted fitness of this asexual vertebrate. Our data suggest that asexual vertebrate lineages are scarce not because they are at a disadvantage, but because the genomic combinations required to bypass meiosis and to make up a functioning hybrid genome are rarely met in nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wesley C. Warren
- McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63108, USA
| | | | - Sen Xu
- Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, 76019, USA
| | - Kathrin P. Lampert
- Department of Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
| | - Domitille Chalopin
- Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS, Université Lyon I, Lyon, France
| | - Matthias Stöck
- Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany
| | - Laurence Loewe
- Laboratory of Genetics and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53715, USA
| | - Yuan Lu
- Texas State University, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
| | - Lukas Kuderna
- Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC), PRBB, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Patrick Minx
- McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63108, USA
| | - Michael J. Montague
- Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Chad Tomlinson
- McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63108, USA
| | - LaDeana W. Hillier
- McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63108, USA
| | - Daniel N. Murphy
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, United Kingdom
| | - John Wang
- Biodiversity Research Center, Academica Sinica Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Zhongwei Wang
- Department of Physiological Chemistry, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany; present address: Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
| | - Constantino Macias Garcia
- Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, CP 04510, Ciudad Universitaria, México DF
| | | | - Jean-Nicolas Volff
- Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS, Université Lyon I, Lyon, France
| | - Fabiana Farias
- McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63108, USA
| | - Bronwen Aken
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SD, United Kingdom
| | - Ronald B. Walter
- Texas State University, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
| | - Kim D. Pruitt
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
| | - Tomas Marques-Bonet
- Institute of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC), PRBB, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
- Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), 08028 Barcelona, and Catalan Institution of Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), 08010 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Matthew W. Hahn
- Indiana University, Department of Biology, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Susanne Kneitz
- Department of Physiological Chemistry, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Michael Lynch
- Indiana University, Department of Biology, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Manfred Schartl
- Department of Physiological Chemistry, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
- Hagler Institute for Advanced Study and Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA, and Comprehensive Cancer Center Mainfranken, University Hospital Würzburg, 97080 Würzburg, Germany
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