Dataset Information

Global coordination in adaptation to gene rewiring.

ABSTRACT: Gene rewiring is a common evolutionary phenomenon in nature that may lead to extinction for living organisms. Recent studies on synthetic biology demonstrate that cells can survive genetic rewiring. This survival (adaptation) is often linked to the stochastic expression of rewired genes with random transcriptional changes. However, the probability of adaptation and the underlying common principles are not clear. We performed a systematic survey of an assortment of gene-rewired Escherichia coli strains to address these questions. Three different cell fates, designated good survivors, poor survivors and failures, were observed when the strains starved. Large fluctuations in the expression of the rewired gene were commonly observed with increasing cell size, but these changes were insufficient for adaptation. Cooperative reorganizations in the corresponding operon and genome-wide gene expression largely contributed to the final success. Transcriptome reorganizations that generally showed high-dimensional dynamic changes were restricted within a one-dimensional trajectory for adaptation to gene rewiring, indicating a general path directed toward cellular plasticity for a successful cell fate. This finding of global coordination supports a mechanism of stochastic adaptation and provides novel insights into the design and application of complex genetic or metabolic networks.

SUBMITTER: Murakami Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4333410 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Global coordination in adaptation to gene rewiring.

Murakami Yoshie Y Matsumoto Yuki Y Tsuru Saburo S Ying Bei-Wen BW Yomo Tetsuya T

Nucleic acids research 20150106 2

Gene rewiring is a common evolutionary phenomenon in nature that may lead to extinction for living organisms. Recent studies on synthetic biology demonstrate that cells can survive genetic rewiring. This survival (adaptation) is often linked to the stochastic expression of rewired genes with random transcriptional changes. However, the probability of adaptation and the underlying common principles are not clear. We performed a systematic survey of an assortment of gene-rewired Escherichia coli s ...[more]

PMID: 25564530

Similar Datasets

Project description:Ethanol is the main by-product of yeast sugar fermentation that affects microbial growth parameters, being considered a dual molecule, a nutrient and a stressor. Previous works demonstrated that the budding yeast arose after an ancient hybridization process resulted in a tier of duplicated genes within its genome, many of them with implications in this ethanol "produce-accumulate-consume" strategy. The evolutionary link between ethanol production, consumption, and tolerance versus ploidy and stability of the hybrids is an ongoing debatable issue. The implication of ancestral duplicates in this metabolic rewiring, and how these duplicates differ transcriptionally, remains unsolved. Here, we study the transcriptomic adaptive signatures to ethanol as a nonfermentative carbon source to sustain clonal yeast growth by experimental evolution, emphasizing the role of duplicated genes in the adaptive process. As expected, ethanol was able to sustain growth but at a lower rate than glucose. Our results demonstrate that in asexual populations a complete transcriptomic rewiring was produced, strikingly by downregulation of duplicated genes, mainly whole-genome duplicates, whereas small-scale duplicates exhibited significant transcriptional divergence between copies. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of evolution after gene duplication, linking transcriptional divergence with duplicates' fate in a multigene trait as ethanol tolerance.IMPORTANCE Gene duplication events have been related with increasing biological complexity through the tree of life, but also with illnesses, including cancer. Early evolutionary theories indicated that duplicated genes could explore alternative functions due to relaxation of selective constraints in one of the copies, as the other remains as ancestral-function backup. In unicellular eukaryotes like yeasts, it has been demonstrated that the fate and persistence of duplicates depend on duplication mechanism (whole-genome or small-scale events), shaping their actual genomes. Although it has been shown that small-scale duplicates tend to innovate and whole-genome duplicates specialize in ancestral functions, the implication of duplicates' transcriptional plasticity and transcriptional divergence on environmental and metabolic responses remains largely obscure. Here, by experimental adaptive evolution, we show that Saccharomyces cerevisiae is able to respond to metabolic stress (ethanol as nonfermentative carbon source) due to the persistence of duplicated genes. These duplicates respond by transcriptional rewiring, depending on their transcriptional background. Our results shed light on the mechanisms that determine the role of duplicates, and on their evolvability.

Project description:The fundamental dynamics of the cell cycle, underlying cell growth and reproduction, were previously found to be robust under a wide range of environmental and internal perturbations. This property was commonly attributed to its network structure, which enables the coordinated interactions among hundreds of proteins. Despite significant advances in deciphering the components and autonomous interactions of this network, understanding the interfaces of the cell cycle with other major cellular processes is still lacking. To gain insight into these interfaces, we used the process of genome-rewiring in yeast by placing an essential metabolic gene HIS3 from the histidine biosynthesis pathway, under the exclusive regulation of different cell-cycle promoters. In a medium lacking histidine and under partial inhibition of the HIS3p, the rewired cells encountered an unforeseen multitasking challenge; the cell-cycle regulatory genes were required to regulate the essential histidine-pathway gene in concert with the other metabolic demands, while simultaneously driving the cell cycle through its proper temporal phases. We show here that chemostat cell populations with rewired cell-cycle promoters adapted within a short time to accommodate the inhibition of HIS3p and stabilized a new phenotypic state. Furthermore, a significant fraction of the population was able to adapt and grow into mature colonies on plates under such inhibiting conditions. The adapted state was shown to be stably inherited across generations. These adaptation dynamics were accompanied by a non-specific and irreproducible genome-wide transcriptional response. Adaptation of the cell-cycle attests to its multitasking capabilities and flexible interface with cellular metabolic processes and requirements. Similar adaptation features were found in our previous work when rewiring HIS3 to the GAL system and switching cells from galactose to glucose. Thus, at the basis of cellular plasticity is the emergence of a yet-unknown general, non-specific mechanism allowing fast inherited adaptation to unforeseen challenges.

Dataset Information

Global coordination in adaptation to gene rewiring.

Publications

Global coordination in adaptation to gene rewiring.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets