What doesn’t kill them makes them stronger: an association between elongation factor 1- α overdominance in the sea star Pisaster ochraceus and “sea star wasting disease”

PeerJ

article

John P. Wares¹  Lauren M. Schiebelhut² 

[1] Department of Genetics and the Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia;School of Natural Sciences, University of California

关键词: Overdominance;    Disease;    Sea star;    Genetic diversity;    Pacific;    Pisaster;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.1876

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

In recent years, a massive mortality event has killed millions of sea stars, of many different species, along the Pacific coast of North America. This disease event, known as ‘sea star wasting disease’ (SSWD), is linked to viral infection. In one affected sea star (Pisaster ochraceus), previous work had identified that the elongation factor 1-α locus (EF1A) harbored an intronic insertion allele that is lethal when homozygous yet appears to be maintained at moderate frequency in populations through increased fitness for heterozygotes. The environmental conditions supporting this increased fitness are unknown, but overdominance is often associated with disease. Here, we evaluate populations of P. ochraceus to identify the relationship between SSWD and EF1A genotype. Our data suggest that there may be significantly decreased occurrence of SSWD in individuals that are heterozygous at this locus. These results suggest further studies are warranted to understand the functional relationship between diversity at EF1A and survival in P. ochraceus.

【 授权许可】

CC BY