Bdelloid rotifers use hundreds of horizontally acquired genes against fungal pathogens
Bdelloid rotifers use hundreds of horizontally acquired genes against fungal pathogens
复制标题
DOI：
10.1101/2021.09.04.458992
复制
发表时间：
2021-09
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
R. Nowell;T. Barraclough;Christopher G. Wilson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. Nowell;T. Barraclough;Christopher G. Wilson
专性无性生殖的谱系通常是罕见和短暂的。根据一种假设，它们适应得太慢，无法抵抗无情的共同进化的病原体。蛭形轮虫似乎已经避免了这种命运，因为它们经历了数百万年没有雄性和性别的生活。我们调查了蛭类动物水平获得非后生动物基因的不寻常能力是否增强了它们对病原体的抵抗力。我们发现，水平转移的基因比天然基因更有可能在自然真菌病原体的反应中上调三倍。这种富集是两倍强于物理应激（干燥）引起的，基因几乎没有重叠。在数百个上调的非多细胞动物基因中，有推定参与抵抗真菌毒素的RNA连接酶和预计从细菌中获得的与真菌细胞壁结合的葡聚糖酶。我们的研究结果提供了证据，表明蛭形类动物部分通过获得和部署如此多的外源基因的能力来减轻长期无性恋的预测挑战。
Obligately asexual lineages are typically rare and short-lived. According to one hypothesis, they adapt too slowly to withstand relentlessly coevolving pathogens. Bdelloid rotifers seem to have avoided this fate, by enduring millions of years without males or sex. We investigated whether bdelloids’ unusual capacity to acquire non-metazoan genes horizontally has enhanced their resistance to pathogens. We found that horizontally transferred genes are three times more likely than native genes to be upregulated in response to a natural fungal pathogen. This enrichment was twofold stronger than that elicited by a physical stressor (desiccation), and the genes showed little overlap. Among hundreds of upregulated non-metazoan genes were RNA ligases putatively involved in resisting fungal toxins and glucanases predicted to bind to fungal cell walls, acquired from bacteria. Our results provide evidence that bdelloids mitigate a predicted challenge of long-term asexuality in part through their ability to acquire and deploy so many foreign genes.