Genome instability drives epistatic adaptation in the human pathogen Leishmania.

ABSTRACT: How genome instability is harnessed for fitness gain despite its potential deleterious effects is largely elusive. An ideal system to address this important open question is provided by the protozoan pathogen Leishmania, which exploits frequent variations in chromosome and gene copy number to regulate expression levels. Using ecological genomics and experimental evolution approaches, we provide evidence that Leishmania adaptation relies on epistatic interactions between functionally associated gene copy number variations in pathways driving fitness gain in a given environment. We further uncover posttranscriptional regulation as a key mechanism that compensates for deleterious gene dosage effects and provides phenotypic robustness to genetically heterogenous parasite populati

SUBMITTER: Bussotti G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8713814 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature