Comparative transcriptome analysis of obligately asexual and cyclically sexual rotifers reveals genes with putative functions in sexual reproduction, dormancy, and asexual egg production

BMC Genomics

Research Article

Sara J Hanson¹  John M Logsdon¹  Claus-Peter Stelzer²  David B Mark Welch³ 

[1] Department of Biology and Interdisciplinary Program in Genetics, University of Iowa, 301 Biology Building, 52242, Iowa City, IA, USA;Institute for Limnology, University of Innsbruck, Herzog Odilostrasse 101, A-5310, Mondsee, Austria;Josephine Bay Paul Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, 02543, Woods Hole, MA, USA;

关键词: Evolution of sexual reproduction;    Differential expression analysis;    Gene ontology analysis;    Meiosis;    Gametogenesis;    Resting eggs;    Mixis induction;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2164-14-412

 received in 2013-03-16, accepted in 2013-05-31,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSexual reproduction is a widely studied biological process because it is critically important to the genetics, evolution, and ecology of eukaryotes. Despite decades of study on this topic, no comprehensive explanation has been accepted that explains the evolutionary forces underlying its prevalence and persistence in nature. Monogonont rotifers offer a useful system for experimental studies relating to the evolution of sexual reproduction due to their rapid reproductive rate and close relationship to the putatively ancient asexual bdelloid rotifers. However, little is known about the molecular underpinnings of sex in any rotifer species.ResultsWe generated mRNA-seq libraries for obligate parthenogenetic (OP) and cyclical parthenogenetic (CP) strains of the monogonont rotifer, Brachionus calyciflorus, to identify genes specific to both modes of reproduction. Our differential expression analysis identified receptors with putative roles in signaling pathways responsible for the transition from asexual to sexual reproduction. Differential expression of a specific copy of the duplicated cell cycle regulatory gene CDC20 and specific copies of histone H2A suggest that such duplications may underlie the phenotypic plasticity required for reproductive mode switch in monogononts. We further identified differential expression of genes involved in the formation of resting eggs, a process linked exclusively to sex in this species. Finally, we identified transcripts from the bdelloid rotifer Adineta ricciae that have significant sequence similarity to genes with higher expression in CP strains of B. calyciflorus.ConclusionsOur analysis of global gene expression differences between facultatively sexual and exclusively asexual populations of B. calyciflorus provides insights into the molecular nature of sexual reproduction in rotifers. Furthermore, our results offer insight into the evolution of obligate asexuality in bdelloid rotifers and provide indicators important for the use of monogononts as a model system for investigating the evolution of sexual reproduction.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Hanson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.