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Fitness Trade-Offs Determine the Role of the Molecular Chaperonin GroEL in Buffering Mutations.

ABSTRACT: Molecular chaperones fold many proteins and their mutated versions in a cell and can sometimes buffer the phenotypic effect of mutations that affect protein folding. Unanswered questions about this buffering include the nature of its mechanism, its influence on the genetic variation of a population, the fitness trade-offs constraining this mechanism, and its role in expediting evolution. Answering these questions is fundamental to understand the contribution of buffering to increase genetic variation and ecological diversification. Here, we performed experimental evolution, genome resequencing, and computational analyses to determine the trade-offs and evolutionary trajectories of Escherichia coli expressing high levels of the essential chaperonin GroEL. GroEL is abundantly present in bacteria, particularly in bacteria with large loads of deleterious mutations, suggesting its role in mutational buffering. We show that groEL overexpression is costly to large populations evolving in the laboratory, leading to groE expression decline within 66 generations. In contrast, populations evolving under the strong genetic drift characteristic of endosymbiotic bacteria avoid extinction or can be rescued in the presence of abundant GroEL. Genomes resequenced from cells evolved under strong genetic drift exhibited significantly higher tolerance to deleterious mutations at high GroEL levels than at native levels, revealing that GroEL is buffering mutations in these cells. GroEL buffered mutations in a highly diverse set of proteins that interact with the environment, including substrate and ion membrane transporters, hinting at its role in ecological diversification. Our results reveal the fitness trade-offs of mutational buffering and how genetic variation is maintained in populations.

SUBMITTER: Sabater-Munoz B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4576708 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Fitness Trade-Offs Determine the Role of the Molecular Chaperonin GroEL in Buffering Mutations.

Sabater-Muñoz Beatriz B Prats-Escriche Maria M Montagud-Martínez Roser R López-Cerdán Adolfo A Toft Christina C Aguilar-Rodríguez José J Wagner Andreas A Fares Mario A MA

Molecular biology and evolution 20150627 10

Molecular chaperones fold many proteins and their mutated versions in a cell and can sometimes buffer the phenotypic effect of mutations that affect protein folding. Unanswered questions about this buffering include the nature of its mechanism, its influence on the genetic variation of a population, the fitness trade-offs constraining this mechanism, and its role in expediting evolution. Answering these questions is fundamental to understand the contribution of buffering to increase genetic vari ...[more]

PMID: 26116858

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Project description:In some of the earliest uses of genome-wide gene-expression microarrays and array-based Comparative Genomic Hybridization (aCGH), a set of diploid yeasts that had undergone experimental evolution under aerobic glucose limitation was used to explore how gene expression and genome structure had responded to this selection pressure. To more deeply understand how adaptation to one environment might constrain or enhance performance in another we have now identified the adaptive mutations in this set of clones using whole-genome sequencing, and have assessed whether the evolved clones had become generalists or specialists by assaying their fitness under three contrasting growth environments: aerobic and anaerobic glucose limitation and aerobic acetate limitation. Additionally, evolved clones and their common ancestor were assayed for gene expression, biomass estimates and residual substrate levels under the alternative growth conditions. Relative fitnesses were evaluated by competing each clone against a common reference strain in each environment. Unexpectedly, we found that the evolved clones also outperformed their ancestor under strictly fermentative and strictly oxidative growth conditions. We conclude that yeasts evolving under aerobic glucose limitation become generalists for carbon limitation, as the mutations selected for in one environment are advantageous in others. High-throughput sequencing of the evolved clones uncovered mutations in genes involved in glucose sensing, signaling, and transport that in part explain these physiological phenotypes, with different sets of mutations found in independently-evolved clones. Earlier gene expression data from aerobic glucose-limited cultures had revealed a shift from fermentation towards respiration in all evolved clones explaining increased fitness in that condition. However, because the evolved clones also show higher fitness under strictly anaerobic conditions and under conditions requiring strictly respirative growth, this switch cannot be the sole source of adaptive benefit. Furthermore, because independently evolved clones are genetically distinct we conclude that there are multiple mutational paths leading to the generalist phenotype. Strain Name: Parental strain (CP1AB) or evolved clones (E1 - E5) Media: aerobic / anaerobic 36 hybridizations

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Fitness Trade-Offs Determine the Role of the Molecular Chaperonin GroEL in Buffering Mutations.

Publications

Fitness Trade-Offs Determine the Role of the Molecular Chaperonin GroEL in Buffering Mutations.

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