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Hellbender genome sequences shed light on genomic expansion at the base of crown salamanders.

ABSTRACT: Among animals, genome sizes range from 20 Mb to 130 Gb, with 380-fold variation across vertebrates. Most of the largest vertebrate genomes are found in salamanders, an amphibian clade of 660 species. Thus, salamanders are an important system for studying causes and consequences of genomic gigantism. Previously, we showed that plethodontid salamander genomes accumulate higher levels of long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons than do other vertebrates, although the evolutionary origins of such sequences remained unexplored. We also showed that some salamanders in the family Plethodontidae have relatively slow rates of DNA loss through small insertions and deletions. Here, we present new data from Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, the hellbender. Cryptobranchus and Plethodontidae span the basal phylogenetic split within salamanders; thus, analyses incorporating these taxa can shed light on the genome of the ancestral crown salamander lineage, which underwent expansion. We show that high levels of LTR retrotransposons likely characterize all crown salamanders, suggesting that disproportionate expansion of this transposable element (TE) class contributed to genomic expansion. Phylogenetic and age distribution analyses of salamander LTR retrotransposons indicate that salamanders' high TE levels reflect persistence and diversification of ancestral TEs rather than horizontal transfer events. Finally, we show that relatively slow DNA loss rates through small indels likely characterize all crown salamanders, suggesting that a decreased DNA loss rate contributed to genomic expansion at the clade's base. Our identification of shared genomic features across phylogenetically distant salamanders is a first step toward identifying the evolutionary processes underlying accumulation and persistence of high levels of repetitive sequence in salamander genomes.

SUBMITTER: Sun C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4122941 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundThe crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster planci (L.), has been blamed for coral mortality in a large number of coral reef systems situated in the Indo-Pacific region. Because of its high fecundity and the long duration of the pelagic larval stage, the mechanism of outbreaks may be related to its meta-population dynamics, which should be examined by larval sampling and population genetic analysis. However, A. planci larvae have undistinguished morphological features compared with other asteroid larvae, hence it has been difficult to discriminate A. planci larvae in plankton samples without species-specific markers. Also, no tools are available to reveal the dispersal pathway of A. planci larvae. Therefore the development of highly polymorphic genetic markers has the potential to overcome these difficulties. To obtain genomic information for these purposes, the complete nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial genome of A. planci and its putative sibling species, A. brevispinus were determined and their characteristics discussed.ResultsThe complete mtDNA of A. planci and A. brevispinus are 16,234 bp and 16,254 bp in size, respectively. These values fall within the length variation range reported for other metazoan mitochondrial genomes. They contain 13 proteins, 2 rRNA, and 22 tRNA genes and the putative control region in the same order as the asteroid, Asterina pectinifera. The A + T contents of A. planci and A. brevispinus on their L strands that encode the majority of protein-coding genes are 56.3% and 56.4% respectively and are lower than that of A. pectinifera (61.2%). The percent similarity of nucleotide sequences between A. planci and A. brevispinus is found to be highest in the CO2 and CO3 regions (both 90.6%) and lowest in ND2 gene (84.2%) among the 13 protein-coding genes. In the deduced putative amino acid sequences, CO1 is highly conserved (99.2%), and ATP8 apparently evolves faster any of the other protein-coding gene (85.2%).ConclusionThe gene arrangement, base composition, codon usage and tRNA structure of A. planci are similar to those of A. brevispinus. However, there are significant variations between A. planci and A. brevispinus. Complete mtDNA sequences are useful for the study of phylogeny, larval detection and population genetics.

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Hellbender genome sequences shed light on genomic expansion at the base of crown salamanders.

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