Your browser doesn't support javascript.
loading
Mostrar: 20 | 50 | 100
Resultados 1 - 20 de 87
Filtrar
Mais filtros

Base de dados
País/Região como assunto
Tipo de documento
Intervalo de ano de publicação
1.
Cell ; 178(4): 767-768, 2019 08 08.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31398331

RESUMO

Microbes in the same community but with distinct niches can have unique long stretches of perfect sequence identity due to recent genetic exchange. Arevalo et al. (2019) use this as a starting point for defining ecologically-relevant populations within a community and to identify the genes that appear to be driving divergence between populations.


Assuntos
Genoma Bacteriano
2.
Cell ; 146(3): 350-2, 2011 Aug 05.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-21816271

RESUMO

Much of adaptation is based upon changes in gene expression, but the emergence of new regulatory logic has not been observed directly. Now, Poelwijk et al. report evolving the lac repressor (LacI) to reverse its regulatory logic, resulting in an "anti-LacI" that represses transcription when bound to its "inducer."

4.
PLoS Biol ; 19(5): e3001208, 2021 05.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34038406

RESUMO

Normal cellular processes give rise to toxic metabolites that cells must mitigate. Formaldehyde is a universal stressor and potent metabolic toxin that is generated in organisms from bacteria to humans. Methylotrophic bacteria such as Methylorubrum extorquens face an acute challenge due to their production of formaldehyde as an obligate central intermediate of single-carbon metabolism. Mechanisms to sense and respond to formaldehyde were speculated to exist in methylotrophs for decades but had never been discovered. Here, we identify a member of the DUF336 domain family, named efgA for enhanced formaldehyde growth, that plays an important role in endogenous formaldehyde stress response in M. extorquens PA1 and is found almost exclusively in methylotrophic taxa. Our experimental analyses reveal that EfgA is a formaldehyde sensor that rapidly arrests growth in response to elevated levels of formaldehyde. Heterologous expression of EfgA in Escherichia coli increases formaldehyde resistance, indicating that its interaction partners are widespread and conserved. EfgA represents the first example of a formaldehyde stress response system that does not involve enzymatic detoxification. Thus, EfgA comprises a unique stress response mechanism in bacteria, whereby a single protein directly senses elevated levels of a toxic intracellular metabolite and safeguards cells from potential damage.


Assuntos
Formaldeído/metabolismo , Methylobacterium extorquens/metabolismo , Bactérias/metabolismo , Formaldeído/toxicidade , Methylobacterium/genética , Methylobacterium/metabolismo , Methylobacterium extorquens/genética , Methylobacterium extorquens/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Estresse Fisiológico/fisiologia
5.
PLoS Genet ; 15(11): e1008458, 2019 11.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31710603

RESUMO

While microbiologists often make the simplifying assumption that genotype determines phenotype in a given environment, it is becoming increasingly apparent that phenotypic heterogeneity (in which one genotype generates multiple phenotypes simultaneously even in a uniform environment) is common in many microbial populations. The importance of phenotypic heterogeneity has been demonstrated in a number of model systems involving binary phenotypic states (e.g., growth/non-growth); however, less is known about systems involving phenotype distributions that are continuous across an environmental gradient, and how those distributions change when the environment changes. Here, we describe a novel instance of phenotypic diversity in tolerance to a metabolic toxin within wild-type populations of Methylobacterium extorquens, a ubiquitous phyllosphere methylotroph capable of growing on the methanol periodically released from plant leaves. The first intermediate in methanol metabolism is formaldehyde, a potent cellular toxin that is lethal in high concentrations. We have found that at moderate concentrations, formaldehyde tolerance in M. extorquens is heterogeneous, with a cell's minimum tolerance level ranging between 0 mM and 8 mM. Tolerant cells have a distinct gene expression profile from non-tolerant cells. This form of heterogeneity is continuous in terms of threshold (the formaldehyde concentration where growth ceases), yet binary in outcome (at a given formaldehyde concentration, cells either grow normally or die, with no intermediate phenotype), and it is not associated with any detectable genetic mutations. Moreover, tolerance distributions within the population are dynamic, changing over time in response to growth conditions. We characterized this phenomenon using bulk liquid culture experiments, colony growth tracking, flow cytometry, single-cell time-lapse microscopy, transcriptomics, and genome resequencing. Finally, we used mathematical modeling to better understand the processes by which cells change phenotype, and found evidence for both stochastic, bidirectional phenotypic diversification and responsive, directed phenotypic shifts, depending on the growth substrate and the presence of toxin.


Assuntos
Heterogeneidade Genética , Variação Genética/genética , Metanol/metabolismo , Methylobacterium extorquens/genética , Tolerância a Medicamentos/genética , Formaldeído/química , Formaldeído/metabolismo , Regulação Bacteriana da Expressão Gênica/efeitos dos fármacos , Genótipo , Methylobacterium extorquens/metabolismo , Fenótipo , Folhas de Planta/química
6.
J Bacteriol ; 203(9)2021 05 01.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33619153

RESUMO

For bacteria to thrive they must be well-adapted to their environmental niche, which may involve specialized metabolism, timely adaptation to shifting environments, and/or the ability to mitigate numerous stressors. These attributes are highly dependent on cellular machinery that can sense both the external and intracellular environment. Methylorubrum extorquens is an extensively studied facultative methylotroph, an organism that can use single-carbon compounds as their sole source of carbon and energy. In methylotrophic metabolism, carbon flows through formaldehyde as a central metabolite; thus, formaldehyde is both an obligate metabolite and a metabolic stressor. Via the one-carbon dissimilation pathway, free formaldehyde is rapidly incorporated by formaldehyde activating enzyme (Fae), which is constitutively expressed at high levels. In the presence of elevated formaldehyde levels, a recently identified formaldehyde-sensing protein, EfgA, induces growth arrest. Herein, we describe TtmR, a formaldehyde-responsive transcription factor that, like EfgA, modulates formaldehyde resistance. TtmR is a member of the MarR family of transcription factors and impacts the expression of 75 genes distributed throughout the genome, many of which are transcription factors and/or involved in stress response, including efgA Notably, when M. extorquens is adapting its metabolic network during the transition to methylotrophy, efgA and ttmR mutants experience an imbalance in formaldehyde production and a notable growth delay. Although methylotrophy necessitates that M. extorquens maintain a relatively high level of formaldehyde tolerance, this work reveals a tradeoff between formaldehyde resistance and the efficient transition to methylotrophic growth and suggests that TtmR and EfgA play a pivotal role in maintaining this balance.Importance: All organisms produce formaldehyde as a byproduct of enzymatic reactions and as a degradation product of metabolites. The ubiquity of formaldehyde in cellular biology suggests all organisms have evolved mechanisms of mitigating formaldehyde toxicity. However, formaldehyde-sensing is poorly described and prevention of formaldehyde-induced damage is primarily understood in the context of detoxification. Here we use an organism that is regularly exposed to elevated intracellular formaldehyde concentrations through high-flux one-carbon utilization pathways to gain insight into the role of formaldehyde-responsive proteins that modulate formaldehyde resistance. Using a combination of genetic and transcriptomic analyses, we identify dozens of genes putatively involved in formaldehyde resistance, determined the relationship between two different formaldehyde response systems and identified an inherent tradeoff between formaldehyde resistance and optimal transition to methylotrophic metabolism.

7.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 115(47): 12000-12004, 2018 11 20.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30348787

RESUMO

Mutualisms are essential for life, yet it is unclear how they arise. A two-stage process has been proposed for the evolution of mutualisms that involve exchanges of two costly resources. First, costly provisioning by one species may be selected for if that species gains a benefit from costless byproducts generated by a second species, and cooperators get disproportionate access to byproducts. Selection could then drive the second species to provide costly resources in return. Previously, a synthetic consortium evolved the first stage of this scenario: Salmonella enterica evolved costly production of methionine in exchange for costless carbon byproducts generated by an auxotrophic Escherichia coli Growth on agar plates localized the benefits of cooperation around methionine-secreting S. enterica Here, we report that further evolution of these partners on plates led to hypercooperative E. coli that secrete the sugar galactose. Sugar secretion arose repeatedly across replicate communities and is costly to E. coli producers, but enhances the growth of S. enterica The tradeoff between individual costs and group benefits led to maintenance of both cooperative and efficient E. coli genotypes in this spatially structured environment. This study provides an experimental example of de novo, bidirectional costly mutualism evolving from byproduct consumption. The results validate the plausibility of costly cooperation emerging from initially costless exchange, a scenario widely used to explain the origin of the mutualistic species interactions that are central to life on Earth.


Assuntos
Interações Microbianas/fisiologia , Simbiose/fisiologia , Evolução Biológica , Carbono , Escherichia coli/genética , Escherichia coli/metabolismo , Evolução Molecular , Galactose/biossíntese , Galactose/metabolismo , Metionina/biossíntese , Metionina/genética , Salmonella enterica/genética , Salmonella enterica/metabolismo
8.
Z Psychosom Med Psychother ; 67(1): 36-55, 2021.
Artigo em Alemão | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33565382

RESUMO

Functions of language in psychotherapy: A qualitative study of psychotherapists' subjective theories of the "talking cure" Objectives: Psychotherapy is traditionally considered as a "talking cure". The specific functions of verbal activity, however, are disputed. The present study aims at identifying central therapeutic functions of verbal activity. Methods: In qualitative interviews n = 23 psychotherapists with psychodynamic (n = 12) or behavioral (n = 11) background were interviewed regarding their theories of the "talking cure." Based on Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) a category system of therapeutic functions of verbal activity was constructed. Results: The participants described a wide range of relational, experiential, and behavioral functions of verbal activity in psychotherapy. Psychodynamic therapists emphasized relational and experiential functions of verbal activity, while behavioral therapists emphasized behavioral functions. Conclusions: The findings imply that verbal activity fulfills diverse functions in therapeutic contexts. This suggests a basic verbal materiality of many therapeutic techniques and common factors that needs to be specified in subsequent research.


Assuntos
Idioma , Psicoterapeutas , Psicoterapia/métodos , Pesquisa Qualitativa , Humanos , Relações Profissional-Paciente
9.
Psychother Psychosom Med Psychol ; 70(3-04): 122-129, 2020 Apr.
Artigo em Alemão | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31158914

RESUMO

AIMS: Alliance Focused Training (AFT) 1 aims at enhancing therapists' competences in resolving ruptures in the therapeutic alliance using video recordings and role-plays. This pilot study funded by the Heigl Foundation aimed at presenting initial results and clinical experiences with AFT in Germany, and to prepare a subsequent RCT. METHODS: 7 trainee therapists participated. Therapies of 15 patients with depressive disorder were analyzed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Trainees experienced AFT as very helpful for their professional development and for dealing with alliance ruptures. The therapeutic competence significantly improved both in self and in observer ratings. The results indicate that AFT is a promising approach to improve psychotherapy training, emphasizing the relevance of the planned proof of concept RCT.


Assuntos
Psicoterapia/educação , Psicoterapia/métodos , Aliança Terapêutica , Adulto , Competência Clínica , Avaliação Educacional , Feminino , Alemanha , Humanos , Masculino , Transtornos Mentais/terapia , Testes Neuropsicológicos , Pacientes Desistentes do Tratamento/estatística & dados numéricos , Projetos Piloto , Relações Profissional-Paciente , Psicoterapeutas/educação , Desempenho de Papéis , Resultado do Tratamento , Gravação em Vídeo
10.
Curr Issues Mol Biol ; 33: 249-266, 2019.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31166197

RESUMO

Experimental evolution has become an increasingly common approach for studying evolutionary phenomena, as well as uncovering physiological connections in a manner complementary to traditional genetics. Here I describe the development of Methylobacterium as a model system for using experimental evolution to study questions at the intersection of metabolism and evolution. Each experiment was initiated to address a particular question inspired by patterns in natural methylotrophs, such as tradeoffs between single-carbon and multi-carbon growth, or the challenges involved in incorporating novel metabolic pathways or genes with poor codon usage that are acquired via horizontal gene transfer. What I could not have appreciated initially, however, was just how many fortuitous surprise findings would emerge. These have ranged from the repeatability of evolution, complex dynamics within populations, epistasis between beneficial mutations, and even the ability to use simple mathematical models to generate testable, quantitative hypotheses about the fitness landscape.


Assuntos
Evolução Molecular Direcionada , Engenharia Metabólica , Methylobacterium , Evolução Molecular Direcionada/métodos , Evolução Molecular Direcionada/tendências , Epistasia Genética/fisiologia , Evolução Molecular , Regulação Bacteriana da Expressão Gênica , Técnicas de Transferência de Genes , Engenharia Metabólica/métodos , Engenharia Metabólica/tendências , Redes e Vias Metabólicas/genética , Methylobacterium/genética , Methylobacterium/metabolismo , Modelos Biológicos , Organismos Geneticamente Modificados , Pesquisa/tendências
11.
PLoS Genet ; 11(2): e1005007, 2015.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25715029

RESUMO

Metabolic networks revolve around few metabolites recognized by diverse enzymes and involved in myriad reactions. Though hub metabolites are considered as stepping stones to facilitate the evolutionary expansion of biochemical pathways, changes in their production or consumption often impair cellular physiology through their system-wide connections. How does metabolism endure perturbations brought immediately by pathway modification and restore hub homeostasis in the long run? To address this question we studied laboratory evolution of pathway-engineered Escherichia coli that underproduces the redox cofactor NADPH on glucose. Literature suggests multiple possibilities to restore NADPH homeostasis. Surprisingly, genetic dissection of isolates from our twelve evolved populations revealed merely two solutions: (1) modulating the expression of membrane-bound transhydrogenase (mTH) in every population; (2) simultaneously consuming glucose with acetate, an unfavored byproduct normally excreted during glucose catabolism, in two subpopulations. Notably, mTH displays broad phylogenetic distribution and has also played a predominant role in laboratory evolution of Methylobacterium extorquens deficient in NADPH production. Convergent evolution of two phylogenetically and metabolically distinct species suggests mTH as a conserved buffering mechanism that promotes the robustness and evolvability of metabolism. Moreover, adaptive diversification via evolving dual substrate consumption highlights the flexibility of physiological systems to exploit ecological opportunities.


Assuntos
Evolução Molecular , NADP Trans-Hidrogenases/genética , NADP/biossíntese , Escherichia coli/genética , Escherichia coli/metabolismo , Genoma Bacteriano , Glucose/metabolismo , Redes e Vias Metabólicas/genética , NADP/genética , Filogenia , Mutação Puntual
12.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 112(5): 1636-41, 2015 Feb 03.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25605920

RESUMO

Natural environments are filled with multiple, often competing, signals. In contrast, biological systems are often studied in "well-controlled" environments where only a single input is varied, potentially missing important interactions between signals. Catabolite repression of galactose by glucose is one of the best-studied eukaryotic signal integration systems. In this system, it is believed that galactose metabolic (GAL) genes are induced only when glucose levels drop below a threshold. In contrast, we show that GAL gene induction occurs at a constant external galactose:glucose ratio across a wide range of sugar concentrations. We systematically perturbed the components of the canonical galactose/glucose signaling pathways and found that these components do not account for ratio sensing. Instead we provide evidence that ratio sensing occurs upstream of the canonical signaling pathway and results from the competitive binding of the two sugars to hexose transporters. We show that a mutant that behaves as the classical model expects (i.e., cannot use galactose above a glucose threshold) has a fitness disadvantage compared with wild type. A number of common biological signaling motifs can give rise to ratio sensing, typically through negative interactions between opposing signaling molecules. We therefore suspect that this previously unidentified nutrient sensing paradigm may be common and overlooked in biology.


Assuntos
Galactose/metabolismo , Glucose/metabolismo , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/genética , Meios de Cultura , Genes Fúngicos , Microscopia de Fluorescência , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/metabolismo , Transdução de Sinais
13.
J Bacteriol ; 199(11)2017 06 01.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28289083

RESUMO

Bacteria increase their metabolic capacity via the acquisition of genetic material or by the mutation of genes already present in the genome. Here, we explore the mechanisms and trade-offs involved when Shewanella oneidensis, a bacterium that typically consumes small organic and amino acids, rapidly evolves to expand its metabolic capacity to catabolize glucose after a short period of adaptation to a glucose-rich environment. Using whole-genome sequencing and genetic approaches, we discovered that deletions in a region including the transcriptional repressor (nagR) that regulates the expression of genes associated with catabolism of N-acetylglucosamine are the common basis for evolved glucose metabolism across populations. The loss of nagR results in the constitutive expression of genes for an N-acetylglucosamine permease (nagP) and kinase (nagK). We demonstrate that promiscuous activities of both NagP and NagK toward glucose allow for the transport and phosphorylation of glucose to glucose-6-phosphate, the initial events of glycolysis otherwise thought to be absent in S. oneidensis13C-based metabolic flux analysis uncovered that subsequent utilization was mediated by the Entner-Doudoroff pathway. This is an example whereby gene loss and preexisting enzymatic promiscuity, and not gain-of-function mutations, were the drivers of increased metabolic capacity. However, we observed a significant decrease in the growth rate on lactate after adaptation to glucose catabolism, suggesting that trade-offs may explain why glycolytic function may not be readily observed in S. oneidensis in natural environments despite it being readily accessible through just a single mutational event.IMPORTANCE Gains in metabolic capacity are frequently associated with the acquisition of novel genetic material via natural or engineered horizontal gene transfer events. Here, we explored how a bacterium that typically consumes small organic acids and amino acids expands its metabolic capacity to include glucose via a loss of genetic material, a process frequently associated with a deterioration of metabolic function. Our findings highlight how the natural promiscuity of transporters and enzymes can be a key driver in expanding metabolic diversity and that many bacteria may possess a latent metabolic capacity accessible through one or a few mutations that remove regulatory functions. Our discovery of trade-offs between growth on lactate and on glucose suggests why this easily gained trait is not observed in nature.


Assuntos
Regulação Bacteriana da Expressão Gênica , Glucose/metabolismo , Shewanella/metabolismo , Acetilglucosamina/metabolismo , Proteínas de Bactérias/genética , Proteínas de Bactérias/metabolismo , Glicólise , Proteínas de Transporte de Monossacarídeos/genética , Proteínas de Transporte de Monossacarídeos/metabolismo , Shewanella/enzimologia , Shewanella/genética , Shewanella/crescimento & desenvolvimento
14.
Mol Biol Evol ; 33(6): 1542-53, 2016 06.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26908584

RESUMO

Contrary to previous understanding, recent evidence indicates that synonymous codon changes may sometimes face strong selection. However, it remains difficult to generalize the nature, strength, and mechanism(s) of such selection. Previously, we showed that synonymous variants of a key enzyme-coding gene (fae) of Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 decreased enzyme production and reduced fitness dramatically. We now show that during laboratory evolution, these variants rapidly regained fitness via parallel yet variant-specific, highly beneficial point mutations in the N-terminal region of fae These mutations (including four synonymous mutations) had weak but consistently positive impacts on transcript levels, enzyme production, or enzyme activity. However, none of the proposed mechanisms (including internal ribosome pause sites or mRNA structure) predicted the fitness impact of evolved or additional, engineered point mutations. This study shows that synonymous mutations can be fixed through strong positive selection, but the mechanism for their benefit varies depending on the local sequence context.


Assuntos
Proteínas de Bactérias/genética , Carbono-Nitrogênio Ligases/genética , Aptidão Genética , Methylobacterium extorquens/genética , Mutação , Adaptação Fisiológica/genética , Proteínas de Bactérias/metabolismo , Evolução Biológica , Carbono-Nitrogênio Ligases/metabolismo , Códon , Epistasia Genética , Evolução Molecular , Methylobacterium extorquens/enzimologia , Methylobacterium extorquens/metabolismo , Biossíntese de Proteínas , RNA Mensageiro/genética , RNA Mensageiro/metabolismo , Ribossomos/genética , Ribossomos/metabolismo , Seleção Genética , Mutação Silenciosa
15.
PLoS Biol ; 12(2): e1001789, 2014 Feb.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24558347

RESUMO

Evolutionary adaptation to a constant environment is often accompanied by specialization and a reduction of fitness in other environments. We assayed the ability of the Lenski Escherichia coli populations to grow on a range of carbon sources after 50,000 generations of adaptation on glucose. Using direct measurements of growth rates, we demonstrated that declines in performance were much less widespread than suggested by previous results from Biolog assays of cellular respiration. Surprisingly, there were many performance increases on a variety of substrates. In addition to the now famous example of citrate, we observed several other novel gains of function for organic acids that the ancestral strain only marginally utilized. Quantitative growth data also showed that strains with a higher mutation rate exhibited significantly more declines, suggesting that most metabolic erosion was driven by mutation accumulation and not by physiological tradeoffs. These reductions in growth by mutator strains were ameliorated by growth at lower temperature, consistent with the hypothesis that this metabolic erosion is largely caused by destabilizing mutations to the associated enzymes. We further hypothesized that reductions in growth rate would be greatest for substrates used most differently from glucose, and we used flux balance analysis to formulate this question quantitatively. To our surprise, we found no significant relationship between decreases in growth and dissimilarity to glucose metabolism. Taken as a whole, these data suggest that in a single resource environment, specialization does not mainly result as an inevitable consequence of adaptive tradeoffs, but rather due to the gradual accumulation of disabling mutations in unused portions of the genome.


Assuntos
Adaptação Fisiológica/genética , Escherichia coli/genética , Metabolismo dos Carboidratos , Meios de Cultura , Escherichia coli/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Escherichia coli/metabolismo , Evolução Molecular , Redes e Vias Metabólicas/genética , Mutagênese , Mutação , Consumo de Oxigênio
16.
PLoS Genet ; 10(2): e1004149, 2014 Feb.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24586190

RESUMO

How do adapting populations navigate the tensions between the costs of gene expression and the benefits of gene products to optimize the levels of many genes at once? Here we combined independently-arising beneficial mutations that altered enzyme levels in the central metabolism of Methylobacterium extorquens to uncover the fitness landscape defined by gene expression levels. We found strong antagonism and sign epistasis between these beneficial mutations. Mutations with the largest individual benefit interacted the most antagonistically with other mutations, a trend we also uncovered through analyses of datasets from other model systems. However, these beneficial mutations interacted multiplicatively (i.e., no epistasis) at the level of enzyme expression. By generating a model that predicts fitness from enzyme levels we could explain the observed sign epistasis as a result of overshooting the optimum defined by a balance between enzyme catalysis benefits and fitness costs. Knowledge of the phenotypic landscape also illuminated that, although the fitness peak was phenotypically far from the ancestral state, it was not genetically distant. Single beneficial mutations jumped straight toward the global optimum rather than being constrained to change the expression phenotypes in the correlated fashion expected by the genetic architecture. Given that adaptation in nature often results from optimizing gene expression, these conclusions can be widely applicable to other organisms and selective conditions. Poor interactions between individually beneficial alleles affecting gene expression may thus compromise the benefit of sex during adaptation and promote genetic differentiation.


Assuntos
Epistasia Genética , Evolução Molecular , Aptidão Genética , Methylobacterium extorquens/genética , Adaptação Fisiológica/genética , Regulação Enzimológica da Expressão Gênica , Methylobacterium extorquens/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Mutação , Fenótipo , Seleção Genética
17.
PLoS Biol ; 11(2): e1001487, 2013.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23431268

RESUMO

Few areas of science have benefited more from the expansion in sequencing capability than the study of microbial communities. Can sequence data, besides providing hypotheses of the functions the members possess, detect the evolutionary and ecological processes that are occurring? For example, can we determine if a species is adapting to one niche, or if it is diversifying into multiple specialists that inhabit distinct niches? Fortunately, adaptation of populations in the laboratory can serve as a model to test our ability to make such inferences about evolution and ecology from sequencing. Even adaptation to a single niche can give rise to complex temporal dynamics due to the transient presence of multiple competing lineages. If there are multiple niches, this complexity is augmented by segmentation of the population into multiple specialists that can each continue to evolve within their own niche. For a known example of parallel diversification that occurred in the laboratory, sequencing data gave surprisingly few obvious, unambiguous signs of the ecological complexity present. Whereas experimental systems are open to direct experimentation to test hypotheses of selection or ecological interaction, the difficulty in "seeing ecology" from sequencing for even such a simple system suggests translation to communities like the human microbiome will be quite challenging. This will require both improved empirical methods to enhance the depth and time resolution for the relevant polymorphisms and novel statistical approaches to rigorously examine time-series data for signs of various evolutionary and ecological phenomena within and between species.


Assuntos
Ecologia , Metagenômica/métodos , Evolução Biológica
18.
PLoS Comput Biol ; 11(8): e1004400, 2015 08.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-26275208

RESUMO

How do bacteria regulate their cellular physiology in response to starvation? Here, we present a detailed characterization of Escherichia coli growth and starvation over a time-course lasting two weeks. We have measured multiple cellular components, including RNA and proteins at deep genomic coverage, as well as lipid modifications and flux through central metabolism. Our study focuses on the physiological response of E. coli in stationary phase as a result of being starved for glucose, not on the genetic adaptation of E. coli to utilize alternative nutrients. In our analysis, we have taken advantage of the temporal correlations within and among RNA and protein abundances to identify systematic trends in gene regulation. Specifically, we have developed a general computational strategy for classifying expression-profile time courses into distinct categories in an unbiased manner. We have also developed, from dynamic models of gene expression, a framework to characterize protein degradation patterns based on the observed temporal relationships between mRNA and protein abundances. By comparing and contrasting our transcriptomic and proteomic data, we have identified several broad physiological trends in the E. coli starvation response. Strikingly, mRNAs are widely down-regulated in response to glucose starvation, presumably as a strategy for reducing new protein synthesis. By contrast, protein abundances display more varied responses. The abundances of many proteins involved in energy-intensive processes mirror the corresponding mRNA profiles while proteins involved in nutrient metabolism remain abundant even though their corresponding mRNAs are down-regulated.


Assuntos
Escherichia coli/metabolismo , Escherichia coli/fisiologia , Glucose/metabolismo , Biologia de Sistemas/métodos , Algoritmos , Escherichia coli/citologia , Escherichia coli/genética , Perfilação da Expressão Gênica , Regulação Bacteriana da Expressão Gênica/genética , Regulação Bacteriana da Expressão Gênica/fisiologia
19.
PLoS Genet ; 9(4): e1003427, 2013 Apr.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23593025

RESUMO

Organisms cope with physiological stressors through acclimatizing mechanisms in the short-term and adaptive mechanisms over evolutionary timescales. During adaptation to an environmental or genetic perturbation, beneficial mutations can generate numerous physiological changes: some will be novel with respect to prior physiological states, while others might either restore acclimatizing responses to a wild-type state, reinforce them further, or leave them unchanged. We examined the interplay of acclimatizing and adaptive responses at the level of global gene expression in Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 engineered with a novel central metabolism. Replacing central metabolism with a distinct, foreign pathway resulted in much slower growth than wild-type. After 600 generations of adaptation, however, eight replicate populations founded from this engineered ancestor had improved up to 2.5-fold. A comparison of global gene expression in wild-type, engineered, and all eight evolved strains revealed that the vast majority of changes during physiological adaptation effectively restored acclimatizing processes to wild-type expression states. On average, 93% of expression perturbations from the engineered strain were restored, with 70% of these occurring in perfect parallel across all eight replicate populations. Novel changes were common but typically restricted to one or a few lineages, and reinforcing changes were quite rare. Despite this, cases in which expression was novel or reinforced in parallel were enriched for loci harboring beneficial mutations. One case of parallel, reinforced changes was the pntAB transhydrogenase that uses NADH to reduce NADP(+) to NADPH. We show that PntAB activity was highly correlated with the restoration of NAD(H) and NADP(H) pools perturbed in the engineered strain to wild-type levels, and with improved growth. These results suggest that much of the evolved response to genetic perturbation was a consequence rather than a cause of adaptation and that physiology avoided "reinventing the wheel" by restoring acclimatizing processes to the pre-stressed state.


Assuntos
Redes e Vias Metabólicas/genética , Methylobacterium extorquens , Estresse Fisiológico/genética , Transcrição Gênica , Aclimatação , Evolução Biológica , Escherichia coli/genética , Escherichia coli/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Escherichia coli/metabolismo , Proteínas de Escherichia coli/genética , Proteínas de Escherichia coli/metabolismo , Deleção de Genes , Regulação Bacteriana da Expressão Gênica , Redes e Vias Metabólicas/fisiologia , Methylobacterium extorquens/genética , Methylobacterium extorquens/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Methylobacterium extorquens/fisiologia , Mutação , NADP Trans-Hidrogenases/genética , NADP Trans-Hidrogenases/metabolismo
20.
PLoS Genet ; 9(2): e1003265, 2013.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23459037

RESUMO

Recent studies have suggested that plant genomes have undergone potentially rampant horizontal gene transfer (HGT), especially in the mitochondrial genome. Parasitic plants have provided the strongest evidence of HGT, which appears to be facilitated by the intimate physical association between the parasites and their hosts. A recent phylogenomic study demonstrated that in the holoparasite Rafflesia cantleyi (Rafflesiaceae), whose close relatives possess the world's largest flowers, about 2.1% of nuclear gene transcripts were likely acquired from its obligate host. Here, we used next-generation sequencing to obtain the 38 protein-coding and ribosomal RNA genes common to the mitochondrial genomes of angiosperms from R. cantleyi and five additional species, including two of its closest relatives and two host species. Strikingly, our phylogenetic analyses conservatively indicate that 24%-41% of these gene sequences show evidence of HGT in Rafflesiaceae, depending on the species. Most of these transgenic sequences possess intact reading frames and are actively transcribed, indicating that they are potentially functional. Additionally, some of these transgenes maintain synteny with their donor and recipient lineages, suggesting that native genes have likely been displaced via homologous recombination. Our study is the first to comprehensively assess the magnitude of HGT in plants involving a genome (i.e., mitochondria) and a species interaction (i.e., parasitism) where it has been hypothesized to be potentially rampant. Our results establish for the first time that, although the magnitude of HGT involving nuclear genes is appreciable in these parasitic plants, HGT involving mitochondrial genes is substantially higher. This may represent a more general pattern for other parasitic plant clades and perhaps more broadly for angiosperms.


Assuntos
Evolução Molecular , Transferência Genética Horizontal/genética , Interações Hospedeiro-Parasita/genética , Plantas/genética , DNA Mitocondrial/genética , Flores/genética , Genoma Mitocondrial , Genoma de Planta , Filogenia , Plantas/parasitologia , RNA Ribossômico/genética , Simbiose
SELEÇÃO DE REFERÊNCIAS
DETALHE DA PESQUISA