Dataset Information

Clustering of Drosophila melanogaster immune genes in interplay with recombination rate.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Gene order in eukaryotic chromosomes is not random and has been linked to coordination of gene expression, chromatin structure and also recombination rate. The evolution of recombination rate is especially relevant for genes involved in immunity because host-parasite co-evolution could select for increased recombination rate (Red Queen hypothesis). To identify patterns left by the intimate interaction between hosts and parasites, I analysed the genomic parameters of the immune genes from 24 gene families/groups of Drosophila melanogaster.

Principal findings

Immune genes that directly interact with the pathogen (i.e. recognition and effector genes) clustered in regions of higher recombination rates. Out of these, clustered effector genes were transcribed fastest indicating that transcriptional control might be one major cause for cluster formation. The relative position of clusters to each other, on the other hand, cannot be explained by transcriptional control per se. Drosophila immune genes that show epistatic interactions can be found at an average distance of 15.44+/-2.98 cM, which is considerably closer than genes that do not interact (30.64+/-1.95 cM).

Conclusions

Epistatically interacting genes rarely belong to the same cluster, which supports recent models of optimal recombination rates between interacting genes in antagonistic host-parasite co-evolution. These patterns suggest that formation of local clusters might be a result of transcriptional control, but that in the condensed genome of D. melanogaster relative position of these clusters may be a result of selection for optimal rather than maximal recombination rates between these clusters.

SUBMITTER: Wegner KM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2475659 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Clustering of Drosophila melanogaster immune genes in interplay with recombination rate.

Wegner K Mathias KM

PloS one 20080730 7

<h4>Background</h4>Gene order in eukaryotic chromosomes is not random and has been linked to coordination of gene expression, chromatin structure and also recombination rate. The evolution of recombination rate is especially relevant for genes involved in immunity because host-parasite co-evolution could select for increased recombination rate (Red Queen hypothesis). To identify patterns left by the intimate interaction between hosts and parasites, I analysed the genomic parameters of the immune ...[more]

PMID: 18665272

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Project description:Estimating fine-scale recombination maps of Drosophila from population genomic data is a challenging problem, in particular because of the high background recombination rate. In this paper, a new computational method is developed to address this challenge. Through an extensive simulation study, it is demonstrated that the method allows more accurate inference, and exhibits greater robustness to the effects of natural selection and noise, compared to a well-used previous method developed for studying fine-scale recombination rate variation in the human genome. As an application, a genome-wide analysis of genetic variation data is performed for two Drosophila melanogaster populations, one from North America (Raleigh, USA) and the other from Africa (Gikongoro, Rwanda). It is shown that fine-scale recombination rate variation is widespread throughout the D. melanogaster genome, across all chromosomes and in both populations. At the fine-scale, a conservative, systematic search for evidence of recombination hotspots suggests the existence of a handful of putative hotspots each with at least a tenfold increase in intensity over the background rate. A wavelet analysis is carried out to compare the estimated recombination maps in the two populations and to quantify the extent to which recombination rates are conserved. In general, similarity is observed at very broad scales, but substantial differences are seen at fine scales. The average recombination rate of the X chromosome appears to be higher than that of the autosomes in both populations, and this pattern is much more pronounced in the African population than the North American population. The correlation between various genomic features-including recombination rates, diversity, divergence, GC content, gene content, and sequence quality-is examined using the wavelet analysis, and it is shown that the most notable difference between D. melanogaster and humans is in the correlation between recombination and diversity.

Project description:Recombination is a fundamental biological process with profound evolutionary implications. Theory predicts that recombination increases the effectiveness of selection in natural populations. Yet, direct tests of this prediction have been restricted to qualitative trends due to the lack of detailed characterization of recombination rate variation across genomes and within species. The use of imprecise recombination rates can also skew population genetic analyses designed to assess the presence and mode of selection across genomes. Here we report the first integrated high-resolution description of genomic and population variation in recombination, which also distinguishes between the two outcomes of meiotic recombination: crossing over (CO) and gene conversion (GC). We characterized the products of 5,860 female meioses in Drosophila melanogaster by genotyping a total of 139 million informative SNPs and mapped 106,964 recombination events at a resolution down to 2 kilobases. This approach allowed us to generate whole-genome CO and GC maps as well as a detailed description of variation in recombination among individuals of this species. We describe many levels of variation in recombination rates. At a large-scale (100 kb), CO rates exhibit extreme and highly punctuated variation along chromosomes, with hot and coldspots. We also show extensive intra-specific variation in CO landscapes that is associated with hotspots at low frequency in our sample. GC rates are more uniformly distributed across the genome than CO rates and detectable in regions with reduced or absent CO. At a local scale, recombination events are associated with numerous sequence motifs and tend to occur within transcript regions, thus suggesting that chromatin accessibility favors double-strand breaks. All these non-independent layers of variation in recombination across genomes and among individuals need to be taken into account in order to obtain relevant estimates of recombination rates, and should be included in a new generation of population genetic models of the interaction between selection and linkage.

Dataset Information

Clustering of Drosophila melanogaster immune genes in interplay with recombination rate.

Background

Principal findings

Conclusions

Publications

Clustering of Drosophila melanogaster immune genes in interplay with recombination rate.

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