Rapid evolution in fungal reproductive genes as revealed by evolutionary analyses of expressed sequence tags in Neurospora
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
INSTRUMENT(S): Yale University Neurospora crassa 70-mer oligo whole genome transcription array
ORGANISM(S): Neurospora intermedia
SUBMITTER: 
Nicklas Samils
PROVIDER: GSE37034 | GEO | 2012-04-05
SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA157985
REPOSITORIES: GEO
Dataset's files
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Similar Datasets
Project description:Neurospora intermedia is a heterothallic filamentous ascomycete. In this study we use microarray technology to study the difference in gene expression between vegetative growth and early reproductive development. Neurospora intermedia FGSC#8882 mat-A and FGSC#8782 mat-a. Solid synthetic crossing medium (SCM) was used as a nutrient regime before sampling and processing. Two different conditions were sampled: vegetative mycelial tissue and young reproductive mycelial tissue.
2012-04-04 | E-GEOD-37034 | ArrayExpress
Project description:Neurospora tetrasperma is a pseudohomothallic filamentous ascomycete with a large (~ 7 Mbp) region of suppressed recombination surrounding its mating-type (mat) locus. The suppressed recombination has lead to sequence divergence between the two mating-type chromosomes of wild-type heterokaryotic strains, while the remaining genome is largely homoallelic. In this study, we use microarray technology to manifest expression divergence linked to mating type in N. tetrasperma. N. tetrasperma and N. crassa, were grown on agar regimes inducing sexual growth (Synthetic Crossing medium) and vegetative growth (Vogel's Medium), respectively. Overall design: [SC]: Neurospora tetrasperma mat-A FGSC#1270; mat-a FGSC#1271; Mat-A FGSC#9033; mat-a FGSC#9034; N. crassa mat-A FGSC#2489 and mat-a FGSC 4200: Synthetic Crossing medium was used as a nutrient regime before sampling and processing [Veg]: Neurospora tetrasperma mat-A FGSC#1270; mat-a FGSC#1271; Mat-A FGSC#9033; mat-a FGSC#9034; N. crassa mat-A FGSC#2489 and mat-a FGSC 4200: Vogel's Medium (Vegetative Medium) was used as a nutrient regime before sampling and processing
2011-01-26 | GSE26798 | GEO
Project description:BACKGROUND: The broadly accepted pattern of rapid evolution of reproductive genes is primarily based on studies of animal systems, although several examples of rapidly evolving genes involved in reproduction are found in diverse additional taxa. In fungi, genes involved in mate recognition have been found to evolve rapidly. However, the examples are too few to draw conclusions on a genome scale. RESULTS: In this study, we performed microarray hybridizations between RNA from sexual and vegetative tissues of two strains of the heterothallic (self-sterile) filamentous ascomycete Neurospora intermedia, to identify a set of sex-associated genes in this species. We aligned Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) from sexual and vegetative tissue of N. intermedia to orthologs from three closely related species: N. crassa, N. discreta and N. tetrasperma. The resulting four-species alignments provided a dataset for molecular evolutionary analyses. Our results confirm a general pattern of rapid evolution of fungal sex-associated genes, compared to control genes with constitutive expression or a high relative expression during vegetative growth. Among the rapidly evolving sex-associated genes, we identified candidates that could be of importance for mating or fruiting-body development. Analyses of five of these candidate genes from additional species of heterothallic Neurospora revealed that three of them evolve under positive selection. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our study represents a novel finding of a genome-wide pattern of rapid evolution of sex-associated genes in the fungal kingdom, and provides a list of candidate genes important for reproductive isolation in Neurospora.
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Project description:Neurospora tetrasperma is a pseudohomothallic filamentous ascomycete with a large (~ 7 Mbp) region of suppressed recombination surrounding its mating-type (mat) locus. The suppressed recombination has lead to sequence divergence between the two mating-type chromosomes of wild-type heterokaryotic strains, while the remaining genome is largely homoallelic. In this study, we use microarray technology to manifest expression divergence linked to mating type in N. tetrasperma. N. tetrasperma and N. crassa, were grown on agar regimes inducing sexual growth (Synthetic Crossing medium) and vegetative growth (Vogel's Medium), respectively. [SC]: Neurospora tetrasperma mat-A FGSC#1270; mat-a FGSC#1271; Mat-A FGSC#9033; mat-a FGSC#9034; N. crassa mat-A FGSC#2489 and mat-a FGSC 4200: Synthetic Crossing medium was used as a nutrient regime before sampling and processing [Veg]: Neurospora tetrasperma mat-A FGSC#1270; mat-a FGSC#1271; Mat-A FGSC#9033; mat-a FGSC#9034; N. crassa mat-A FGSC#2489 and mat-a FGSC 4200: Vogel's Medium (Vegetative Medium) was used as a nutrient regime before sampling and processing
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Project description:BACKGROUND: Comparative sequencing studies among a wide range of taxonomic groups, including fungi, have led to the discovery that reproductive genes evolve more rapidly than other genes. However, for fungal reproductive genes the question has remained whether the rapid evolution is a result of stochastic or deterministic processes. The mating-type (mat) genes constitute the master regulators of sexual reproduction in filamentous ascomycetes and here we present a study of the molecular evolution of the four mat-genes (mat a-1, mat A-1, mat A-2 and mat A-3) of 20 Neurospora taxa. RESULTS: We estimated nonsynonymous and synonymous substitution rates of genes to infer their evolutionary rate, and confirmed that the mat-genes evolve rapidly. Furthermore, the evolutionary trajectories are related to the reproductive modes of the taxa; likelihood methods revealed that positive selection acting on specific codons drives the diversity in heterothallic taxa, while among homothallic taxa the rapid evolution is due to a lack of selective constraint. The latter finding is supported by presence of stop codons and frame shift mutations disrupting the open reading frames of mat a-1, mat A-2 and mat A-3 in homothallic taxa. Lower selective constraints of mat-genes was found among homothallic than heterothallic taxa, and comparisons with non-reproductive genes argue that this disparity is not a nonspecific, genome-wide phenomenon. CONCLUSION: Our data show that the mat-genes evolve rapidly in Neurospora. The rapid divergence is due to either adaptive evolution or lack of selective constraints, depending on the reproductive mode of the taxa. This is the first instance of positive selection acting on reproductive genes in the fungal kingdom, and illustrates how the evolutionary trajectory of reproductive genes can change after a switch in reproductive behaviour of an organism.
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2015-01-01 | S-EPMC4384475 | BioStudies
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