@pankajd.bsky.social & @darrenobbard.bsky.social show that immune genes overall evolve faster at the protein level, but are less prone to copy-number changes than other genes in Drosophila.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag034
#genome #evolution #drosophila
Quick plug for our new resource, the Drosophila Species Stock Exchange. This is a database and mailing list that documents species currently in culture and the labs holding them. If you want to know more or sign up then please get in touch. See attached for more info and please share!
A phylogenetic tree of insects is shown annotating the presence or absence of a an antimicrobial peptide gene across winged insects
Various phylogenetic secondary loss events are mapped to a tree of insects to explain the parsimony calculations necessary to explain the diversity of insect Drosomycin antimicrobial peptide genes
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are key defence molecules of the innate immune system of plants and animals. Understanding the evolutionary origins of AMPs can help to explain how immune systems acquire novelty and vary in their defensive capabilities. However, AMPs evolve rapidly, and so the origins of similar AMPs across organisms is often unclear. Furthermore, false negatives due to low search sensitivity are common and can hinder confident annotations about true absences. Due to these difficulties, understanding whether similar AMP genes found in diverse organisms represent ancestral molecules or evolutionary novelties has been challenging. In this report, we present evidence of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of the antifungal peptide gene Drosomycin across insects. We show that in Diptera, the presence of Drosomycin is restricted to the Melanogaster group and additionally the distant relative Drosophila busckii. We go on to recover Drosomycin genes in cockroaches (Blattodea), mantises (Mantodea), one katydid (Orthoptera), various beetles (Coleoptera), and a recently acquired pseudogenized Drosomycin locus in Liposcelis booklice (Psocodea), but no other insects. Explaining this diversity through shared ancestry requires at least 50 independent loss events, or just seven HGT events. Previous studies have suggested that similar AMPs found across divergent species reflect conservation from a common ancestor, or due to their small size, that they arose via convergent evolution resulting from pathogen-imposed selection. Our findings suggest horizontal gene transfer can be responsible for the presence of some AMP genes found scattered across the tree of life. By presenting a mechanism through which immune systems can acquire novelty, our study also suggests a possible explanation for certain lineage-specific competencies for defence against infectious disease. While loss of AMP genes is common in certain lineages, here we suggest gain of AMPs can occur just as suddenly.
Pleased to finally share this fun collab that began at #Ento23
@cedricaumont.bsky.social presented & I had seen NCBI annotated some cockroach genomes as "contaminated." Turns out NCBI & I were wrong (much more fun).
Horizontal transfer of an #AntimicrobialPeptide across insects
bit.ly/DrsHGT
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The role of haltere campaniform sensilla on equilibrium reflexes of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster
#Drosophila
Predictors of protein evolution in the drosophilid immune system url: academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
#Drosohila #Immunity #fly #Evolution #Geneturnover #AdaptiveEvolution #Predictors #OrthologousGeneFamilies
The next BAPG has been announced! April 11 at Davis organized by the inimitable @jrossibarra.bsky.social! bapg-conference.github.io
Time-calibrated phylogeny of the family Drosophilidae showing major species groups, surrounded by representative adult flies that highlight the remarkable morphological diversity of this model insect group. The composite image was created using Microsoft PowerPoint. Fly photographs were taken by Darren J. Obbard and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License with permission.
The #fly community aims to achieve a comprehensive genomic study of the Drosophilidae family. @pankajd.bsky.social @bernardkim.bsky.social @petrovadmitri.bsky.social @darrenobbard.bsky.social present a comparative gene annotation for 301 #Drosophilidae species @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4c3pyrI
Predictors of protein evolution in the drosophilid immune system
#Drosophila
Transcriptomic analysis of non-model Drosophilidae reveals novel AMP candidates
#Drosophila
