RRC ID 54966
Author Eickbush MT, Young JM, Zanders SE.
Title Killer Meiotic Drive and Dynamic Evolution of the wtf Gene Family.
Journal Mol Biol Evol
Abstract Natural selection works best when the two alleles in a diploid organism are transmitted to offspring at equal frequencies. Despite this, selfish loci known as meiotic drivers that bias their own transmission into gametes are found throughout eukaryotes. Drive is thought to be a powerful evolutionary force, but empirical evolutionary analyses of drive systems are limited by low numbers of identified meiotic drive genes. Here, we analyze the evolution of the wtf gene family of Schizosaccharomyces pombe that contains both killer meiotic drive genes and suppressors of drive. We completed assemblies of all wtf genes for two S. pombe isolates, as well as a subset of wtf genes from over 50 isolates. We find that wtf copy number can vary greatly between isolates and that amino acid substitutions, expansions and contractions of DNA sequence repeats, and nonallelic gene conversion between family members all contribute to dynamic wtf gene evolution. This work demonstrates the power of meiotic drive to foster rapid evolution and identifies a recombination mechanism through which transposons can indirectly mobilize meiotic drivers.
Volume 36(6)
Pages 1201-1214
Published 2019-6-1
DOI 10.1093/molbev/msz052
PII 5373080
PMID 30991417
PMC PMC6526906
MeSH Evolution, Molecular* Gene Conversion* Genes, Fungal Inheritance Patterns Meiosis Molecular Sequence Annotation Multigene Family Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid Schizosaccharomyces / genetics*
IF 14.797
Times Cited 5
Resource
Yeast FY28974 FY28989 FY29030 FY29033