Dataset Information

The evolutionary dynamics of major regulators for sexual development among Hymenoptera species.

ABSTRACT: All hymenopteran species, such as bees, wasps and ants, are characterized by the common principle of haplodiploid sex determination in which haploid males arise from unfertilized eggs and females from fertilized eggs. The underlying molecular mechanism has been studied in detail in the western honey bee Apis mellifera, in which the gene complementary sex determiner (csd) acts as primary signal of the sex determining pathway, initiating female development by csd-heterozygotes. Csd arose from gene duplication of the feminizer (fem) gene, a transformer (tra) ortholog, and mediates in conjunction with transformer2 (tra2) sex-specific splicing of fem. Comparative molecular analyses identified fem/tra and its downstream target doublesex (dsx) as conserved unit within the sex determining pathway of holometabolous insects. In this study, we aim to examine evolutionary differences among these key regulators. Our main hypothesis is that sex determining key regulators in Hymenoptera species show signs of coevolution within single phylogenetic lineages. We take advantage of several newly sequenced genomes of bee species to test this hypothesis using bioinformatic approaches. We found evidences that duplications of fem are restricted to certain bee lineages and notable amino acid differences of tra2 between Apis and non-Apis species propose structural changes in Tra2 protein affecting co-regulatory function on target genes. These findings may help to gain deeper insights into the ancestral mode of hymenopteran sex determination and support the common view of the remarkable evolutionary flexibility in this regulatory pathway.

SUBMITTER: Biewer M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4392698 | biostudies-other | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The evolutionary dynamics of major regulators for sexual development among Hymenoptera species.

Biewer Matthias M Schlesinger Francisca F Hasselmann Martin M

Frontiers in genetics 20150410

All hymenopteran species, such as bees, wasps and ants, are characterized by the common principle of haplodiploid sex determination in which haploid males arise from unfertilized eggs and females from fertilized eggs. The underlying molecular mechanism has been studied in detail in the western honey bee Apis mellifera, in which the gene complementary sex determiner (csd) acts as primary signal of the sex determining pathway, initiating female development by csd-heterozygotes. Csd arose from gene ...[more]

PMID: 25914717

Similar Datasets

Project description:The primary energy-producing pathway in eukaryotic cells, the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) system, comprises proteins encoded by both mitochondrial and nuclear genes. To maintain the function of the OXPHOS system, the pattern of substitutions in mitochondrial and nuclear genes may not be completely independent. It has been suggested that slightly deleterious substitutions in mitochondrial genes are compensated by substitutions in the interacting nuclear genes due to positive selection. Among the four largest insect orders, Coleoptera (beetles), Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, ants, and bees), Diptera (midges, mosquitoes, and flies) and Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), the mitochondrial genes of Hymenoptera exhibit an exceptionally high amino acid substitution rate while the evolution of nuclear OXPHOS genes is largely unknown. Therefore, Hymenoptera is an excellent model group for testing the hypothesis of positive selection driving the substitution rate of nuclear OXPHOS genes. In this study, we report the evolutionary rate of OXPHOS genes in Hymenoptera and test for evidence of positive selection in nuclear OXPHOS genes of Hymenoptera.Our analyses revealed that the amino acid substitution rate of mitochondrial and nuclear OXPHOS genes in Hymenoptera is higher than that in other studied insect orders. In contrast, the amino acid substitution rate of non-OXPHOS genes in Hymenoptera is lower than the rate in other insect orders. Overall, we found the dN/dS ratio of the nuclear OXPHOS genes to be higher in Hymenoptera than in other insect orders. However, nuclear OXPHOS genes with high dN/dS ratio did not always exhibit a high amino acid substitution rate. Using branch-site and site model tests, we identified various codon sites that evolved under positive selection in nuclear OXPHOS genes.Our results showed that nuclear OXPHOS genes in Hymenoptera are evolving faster than the genes in other three insect orders. The branch test suggested that while some nuclear OXPHOS genes in Hymenoptera show a signature of positive selection, the pattern is not consistent across all nuclear OXPHOS genes. As only few codon sites were under positive selection, we suggested that positive selection might not be the only factor contributing to the rapid evolution of nuclear OXPHOS genes in Hymenoptera.

Dataset Information

The evolutionary dynamics of major regulators for sexual development among Hymenoptera species.

Publications

The evolutionary dynamics of major regulators for sexual development among Hymenoptera species.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets