The Extracellular Milieu of Toxoplasma's Lytic Cycle Drives Lab Adaptation, Primarily by Transcriptional Reprogramming.

ABSTRACT: Evolve and resequencing (E&R) was applied to lab adaptation of Toxoplasma gondii for over 1,500 generations with the goal of mapping host-independent in vitro virulence traits. Phenotypic assessments of steps across the lytic cycle revealed that only traits needed in the extracellular milieu evolved. Nonsynonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in only one gene, a P4 flippase, fixated across two different evolving populations, whereas dramatic changes in the transcriptional signature of extracellular parasites were identified. Newly developed computational tools correlated phenotypes evolving at different rates with specific transcriptomic changes. A set of 300 phenotype-associated genes was mapped, of which nearly 50% is annotated as hypothetical. Validation of a select num

SUBMITTER: Primo VA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8651083 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature