scholarly journals Multiple mechanisms drive genomic adaptation to extreme O2 levels in Drosophila melanogaster

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arya Iranmehr ◽  
Tsering Stobdan ◽  
Dan Zhou ◽  
Huiwen Zhao ◽  
Sergey Kryazhimskiy ◽  
...  

AbstractTo detect the genomic mechanisms underlying evolutionary dynamics of adaptation in sexually reproducing organisms, we analyze multigenerational whole genome sequences of Drosophila melanogaster adapting to extreme O2 conditions over an experiment conducted for nearly two decades. We develop methods to analyze time-series genomics data and predict adaptive mechanisms. Here, we report a remarkable level of synchronicity in both hard and soft selective sweeps in replicate populations as well as the arrival of favorable de novo mutations that constitute a few asynchronized sweeps. We additionally make direct experimental observations of rare recombination events that combine multiple alleles on to a single, better-adapted haplotype. Based on the analyses of the genes in genomic intervals, we provide a deeper insight into the mechanisms of genome adaptation that allow complex organisms to survive harsh environments.

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 290-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher E Ellison ◽  
Weihuan Cao

Abstract Illumina sequencing has allowed for population-level surveys of transposable element (TE) polymorphism via split alignment approaches, which has provided important insight into the population dynamics of TEs. However, such approaches are not able to identify insertions of uncharacterized TEs, nor can they assemble the full sequence of inserted elements. Here, we use nanopore sequencing and Hi-C scaffolding to produce de novo genome assemblies for two wild strains of Drosophila melanogaster from the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP). Ovarian piRNA populations and Illumina split-read TE insertion profiles have been previously produced for both strains. We find that nanopore sequencing with Hi-C scaffolding produces highly contiguous, chromosome-length scaffolds, and we identify hundreds of TE insertions that were missed by Illumina-based methods, including a novel micropia-like element that has recently invaded the DGRP population. We also find hundreds of piRNA-producing loci that are specific to each strain. Some of these loci are created by strain-specific TE insertions, while others appear to be epigenetically controlled. Our results suggest that Illumina approaches reveal only a portion of the repetitive sequence landscape of eukaryotic genomes and that population-level resequencing using long reads is likely to provide novel insight into the evolutionary dynamics of repetitive elements.


eLife ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute I Scholl ◽  
Gabriel Stölting ◽  
Carol Nelson-Williams ◽  
Alfred A Vichot ◽  
Murim Choi ◽  
...  

Many Mendelian traits are likely unrecognized owing to absence of traditional segregation patterns in families due to causation by de novo mutations, incomplete penetrance, and/or variable expressivity. Genome-level sequencing can overcome these complications. Extreme childhood phenotypes are promising candidates for new Mendelian traits. One example is early onset hypertension, a rare form of a global cause of morbidity and mortality. We performed exome sequencing of 40 unrelated subjects with hypertension due to primary aldosteronism by age 10. Five subjects (12.5%) shared the identical, previously unidentified, heterozygous CACNA1HM1549V mutation. Two mutations were demonstrated to be de novo events, and all mutations occurred independently. CACNA1H encodes a voltage-gated calcium channel (CaV3.2) expressed in adrenal glomerulosa. CACNA1HM1549V showed drastically impaired channel inactivation and activation at more hyperpolarized potentials, producing increased intracellular Ca2+, the signal for aldosterone production. This mutation explains disease pathogenesis and provides new insight into mechanisms mediating aldosterone production and hypertension.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander M Lalejini ◽  
Austin J Ferguson ◽  
Nkrumah A Grant ◽  
Charles Ofria

Fluctuating environmental conditions are ubiquitous in natural systems, and populations have evolved various strategies to cope with such fluctuations. The particular mechanisms that evolve profoundly influence subsequent evolutionary dynamics. One such mechanism is phenotypic plasticity, which is the ability of a single genotype to produce alternate phenotypes in an environmentally dependent context. Here, we use digital organisms (self-replicating computer programs) to investigate how adaptive phenotypic plasticity alters evolutionary dynamics and influences evolutionary outcomes in cyclically changing environments. Specifically, we examined the evolutionary histories of both plastic populations and non-plastic populations to ask: (1) Does adaptive plasticity promote or constrain evolutionary change? (2) Are plastic populations better able to evolve and then maintain novel traits? And (3), how does adaptive plasticity affect the potential for maladaptive alleles to accumulate in evolving genomes? We find that populations with adaptive phenotypic plasticity undergo less evolutionary change than non-plastic populations, which must rely on genetic variation from de novo mutations to continuously readapt to environmental fluctuations. Indeed, the non-plastic populations undergo more frequent selective sweeps and accumulate many more genetic changes. We find that the repeated selective sweeps in non-plastic populations drive the loss of beneficial traits and accumulation of maladaptive alleles via deleterious hitchhiking, whereas phenotypic plasticity can stabilize populations against environmental fluctuations. This stabilization allows plastic populations to more easily retain novel adaptive traits than their non-plastic counterparts. In general, the evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity shifted evolutionary dynamics to be more similar to that of populations evolving in a static environment than to non-plastic populations evolving in an identical fluctuating environment. All natural environments subject populations to some form of change; our findings suggest that the stabilizing effect of phenotypic plasticity plays an important role in subsequent adaptive evolution.


eLife ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine S Xue ◽  
Terry Stevens-Ayers ◽  
Angela P Campbell ◽  
Janet A Englund ◽  
Steven A Pergam ◽  
...  

Viral variants that arise in the global influenza population begin as de novo mutations in single infected hosts, but the evolutionary dynamics that transform within-host variation to global genetic diversity are poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that influenza evolution within infected humans recapitulates many evolutionary dynamics observed at the global scale. We deep-sequence longitudinal samples from four immunocompromised patients with long-term H3N2 influenza infections. We find parallel evolution across three scales: within individual patients, in different patients in our study, and in the global influenza population. In hemagglutinin, a small set of mutations arises independently in multiple patients. These same mutations emerge repeatedly within single patients and compete with one another, providing a vivid clinical example of clonal interference. Many of these recurrent within-host mutations also reach a high global frequency in the decade following the patient infections. Our results demonstrate surprising concordance in evolutionary dynamics across multiple spatiotemporal scales.


BMC Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margie Kinnersley ◽  
Katja Schwartz ◽  
Dong-Dong Yang ◽  
Gavin Sherlock ◽  
Frank Rosenzweig

Abstract Background Microbial evolution experiments can be used to study the tempo and dynamics of evolutionary change in asexual populations, founded from single clones and growing into large populations with multiple clonal lineages. High-throughput sequencing can be used to catalog de novo mutations as potential targets of selection, determine in which lineages they arise, and track the fates of those lineages. Here, we describe a long-term experimental evolution study to identify targets of selection and to determine when, where, and how often those targets are hit. Results We experimentally evolved replicate Escherichia coli populations that originated from a mutator/nonsense suppressor ancestor under glucose limitation for between 300 and 500 generations. Whole-genome, whole-population sequencing enabled us to catalog 3346 de novo mutations that reached > 1% frequency. We sequenced the genomes of 96 clones from each population when allelic diversity was greatest in order to establish whether mutations were in the same or different lineages and to depict lineage dynamics. Operon-specific mutations that enhance glucose uptake were the first to rise to high frequency, followed by global regulatory mutations. Mutations related to energy conservation, membrane biogenesis, and mitigating the impact of nonsense mutations, both ancestral and derived, arose later. New alleles were confined to relatively few loci, with many instances of identical mutations arising independently in multiple lineages, among and within replicate populations. However, most never exceeded 10% in frequency and were at a lower frequency at the end of the experiment than at their maxima, indicating clonal interference. Many alleles mapped to key structures within the proteins that they mutated, providing insight into their functional consequences. Conclusions Overall, we find that when mutational input is increased by an ancestral defect in DNA repair, the spectrum of high-frequency beneficial mutations in a simple, constant resource-limited environment is narrow, resulting in extreme parallelism where many adaptive mutations arise but few ever go to fixation.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuo Zhang ◽  
Erin S. Kelleher

ABSTRACTThe regulation of transposable element (TE) activity by small RNAs is a ubiquitous feature of germlines. However, despite the obvious benefits to the host in terms of ensuring the production of viable gametes and maintaining the integrity of the genomes they carry, it remains controversial whether TE regulation evolves adaptively. We examined the emergence and evolutionary dynamics of repressor alleles after P-elements invaded the Drosophila melanogaster genome in the mid 20th century. In many animals including Drosophila, repressor alleles are produced by transpositional insertions into piRNA clusters, genomic regions encoding the Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) that regulate TEs. We discovered that ∼94% of recently collected isofemale lines in the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP) contain at least one P-element insertion in a piRNA cluster, indicating that repressor alleles are produced by de novo insertion at an exceptional rate. Furthermore, in our sample of ∼200 genomes, we uncovered no fewer than 80 unique P-element insertion alleles in at least 15 different piRNA clusters. Finally, we observe no footprint of positive selection on P-element insertions in piRNA clusters, suggesting that the rapid evolution of piRNA-mediated repression in D. melanogaster was driven primarily by mutation. Our results reveal for the first time how the unique genetic architecture of piRNA production, in which numerous piRNA clusters can encode regulatory small RNAs upon transpositional insertion, facilitates the non-adaptive rapid evolution of repression.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (50) ◽  
pp. 1257-1274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katia Koelle ◽  
Priya Khatri ◽  
Meredith Kamradt ◽  
Thomas B. Kepler

Understanding the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of rapidly evolving pathogens is one of the most challenging problems facing disease ecologists today. To date, many mathematical and individual-based models have provided key insights into the factors that may regulate these dynamics. However, in many of these models, abstractions have been made to the simulated sequences that limit an effective interface with empirical data. This is especially the case for rapidly evolving viruses in which de novo mutations result in antigenically novel variants. With this focus, we present a simple two-tiered ‘phylodynamic’ model whose purpose is to simulate, along with case data, sequence data that will allow for a more quantitative interface with observed sequence data. The model differs from previous approaches in that it separates the simulation of the epidemiological dynamics (tier 1) from the molecular evolution of the virus's dominant antigenic protein (tier 2). This separation of phenotypic dynamics from genetic dynamics results in a modular model that is computationally simpler and allows sequences to be simulated with specifications such as sequence length, nucleotide composition and molecular constraints. To illustrate its use, we apply the model to influenza A (H3N2) dynamics in humans, influenza B dynamics in humans and influenza A (H3N8) dynamics in equine hosts. In all three of these illustrative examples, we show that the model can simulate sequences that are quantitatively similar in pattern to those empirically observed. Future work should focus on statistical estimation of model parameters for these examples as well as the possibility of applying this model, or variants thereof, to other host–virus systems.


PLoS Genetics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. e1009787
Author(s):  
Emily L. Rivard ◽  
Andrew G. Ludwig ◽  
Prajal H. Patel ◽  
Anna Grandchamp ◽  
Sarah E. Arnold ◽  
...  

Comparative genomics has enabled the identification of genes that potentially evolved de novo from non-coding sequences. Many such genes are expressed in male reproductive tissues, but their functions remain poorly understood. To address this, we conducted a functional genetic screen of over 40 putative de novo genes with testis-enriched expression in Drosophila melanogaster and identified one gene, atlas, required for male fertility. Detailed genetic and cytological analyses showed that atlas is required for proper chromatin condensation during the final stages of spermatogenesis. Atlas protein is expressed in spermatid nuclei and facilitates the transition from histone- to protamine-based chromatin packaging. Complementary evolutionary analyses revealed the complex evolutionary history of atlas. The protein-coding portion of the gene likely arose at the base of the Drosophila genus on the X chromosome but was unlikely to be essential, as it was then lost in several independent lineages. Within the last ~15 million years, however, the gene moved to an autosome, where it fused with a conserved non-coding RNA and evolved a non-redundant role in male fertility. Altogether, this study provides insight into the integration of novel genes into biological processes, the links between genomic innovation and functional evolution, and the genetic control of a fundamental developmental process, gametogenesis.


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