| Title: | Functional Conservation and Divergence of daf-22 Paralogs in Pristionchus pacificus Dauer Development |
| Author(s): | Markov GV; Meyer JM; Panda O; Artyukhin AB; Claassen M; Witte H; Schroeder FC; Sommer RJ; |
| Address: | "Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Spemannstrasse 37, Tubingen, Germany. Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University. Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University. Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Spemannstrasse 37, Tubingen, Germany ralf.sommer@tuebingen.mpg.de" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1537-1719 (Electronic) 0737-4038 (Print) 0737-4038 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Small-molecule signaling in nematode dauer formation has emerged as a major model to study chemical communication in development and evolution. Developmental arrest as nonfeeding and stress-resistant dauer larvae represents the major survival and dispersal strategy. Detailed studies in Caenorhabditis elegans and Pristionchus pacificus revealed that small-molecule communication changes rapidly in evolution resulting in extreme structural diversity of small-molecule compounds. In C. elegans, a blend of ascarosides constitutes the dauer pheromone, whereas the P. pacificus dauer pheromone includes additional paratosides and integrates building blocks from diverse primary metabolic pathways. Despite this complexity of small-molecule structures and functions, little is known about the biosynthesis of small molecules in nematodes outside C. elegans Here, we show that the genes encoding enzymes of the peroxisomal beta-oxidation pathway involved in small-molecule biosynthesis evolve rapidly, including gene duplications and domain switching. The thiolase daf-22, the most downstream factor in C. elegans peroxisomal beta-oxidation, has duplicated in P. pacificus, resulting in Ppa-daf-22.1, which still contains the sterol-carrier-protein (SCP) domain that was lost in C. elegans daf-22, and Ppa-daf-22.2. Using the CRISPR/Cas9 system, we induced mutations in both P. pacificus daf-22 genes and identified an unexpected complexity of functional conservation and divergence. Under well-fed conditions, ascaroside biosynthesis proceeds exclusively via Ppa-daf-22.1 In contrast, starvation conditions induce Ppa-daf-22.2 activity, resulting in the production of a specific subset of ascarosides. Gene expression studies indicate a reciprocal up-regulation of both Ppa-daf-22 genes, which is, however, independent of starvation. Thus, our study reveals an unexpected functional complexity of dauer development and evolution" |
| Keywords: | "Animals Biological Evolution Caenorhabditis elegans/*genetics/metabolism Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins/genetics/metabolism Conserved Sequence Evolution, Molecular Glycolipids/metabolism Larva/genetics Metabolic Networks and Pathways Pheromones/metabolis;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineMarkov, Gabriel V Meyer, Jan M Panda, Oishika Artyukhin, Alexander B Claassen, Marc Witte, Hanh Schroeder, Frank C Sommer, Ralf J eng R01 GM088290/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2016/05/18 Mol Biol Evol. 2016 Oct; 33(10):2506-14. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msw090. Epub 2016 Apr 28" |
