Extensive intraspecies cryptic variation in an ancient embryonic gene regulatory network

eLife

Russell G Snell¹  Chee Kiang Ewe¹  Melissa R Alcorn¹  Cricket G Wood¹  Kyle C Chipman²  Yamila N Torres Cleuren³  Emily R Mears³  Coco Emma Alma Al-Alami³  Pradeep M Joshi³  Joel H Rothman⁴  Thomas L Turner⁴ 

[1] Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States;School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand;Department of MCD Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States;School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand;

关键词: SKN-1;    GWAS;    development;    GRN;    cryptic variation;    genotype-by-sequencing;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.48220

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Innovations in metazoan development arise from evolutionary modification of gene regulatory networks (GRNs). We report widespread cryptic variation in the requirement for two key regulatory inputs, SKN-1/Nrf2 and MOM-2/Wnt, into the C. elegans endoderm GRN. While some natural isolates show a nearly absolute requirement for these two regulators, in others, most embryos differentiate endoderm in their absence. GWAS and analysis of recombinant inbred lines reveal multiple genetic regions underlying this broad phenotypic variation. We observe a reciprocal trend, in which genomic variants, or knockdown of endoderm regulatory genes, that result in a high SKN-1 requirement often show low MOM-2/Wnt requirement and vice-versa, suggesting that cryptic variation in the endoderm GRN may be tuned by opposing requirements for these two key regulatory inputs. These findings reveal that while the downstream components in the endoderm GRN are common across metazoan phylogeny, initiating regulatory inputs are remarkably plastic even within a single species.

【 授权许可】

Unknown