Convergent expansions of keystone gene families drive metabolic innovation in Saccharomycotina yeasts.

ABSTRACT: Many remarkable phenotypes have repeatedly occurred across vast evolutionary distances. When convergent traits emerge on the tree of life, they are sometimes driven by the same underlying gene families, while other times, many different gene families are involved. Conversely, a gene family may be repeatedly recruited for a single trait or many different traits. To understand the general rules governing convergence at both genomic and phenotypic levels, we systematically tested associations between 56 binary metabolic traits and gene count in 14,785 gene families from 993 Saccharomycotina yeasts. Using a recently developed phylogenetic approach that reduces spurious correlations, we found that gene family expansion and contraction were significantly linked to trait gain and loss in 45/56 (8

SUBMITTER: David KT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12167968 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature