A gene with a thousand alleles: The hyper-variable effectors of plant-parasitic nematodes.
Cell Genom
; 4(6): 100580, 2024 Jun 12.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38815588
ABSTRACT
Pathogens are engaged in a fierce evolutionary arms race with their host. The genes at the forefront of the engagement between kingdoms are often part of diverse and highly mutable gene families. Even in this context, we discovered unprecedented variation in the hyper-variable (HYP) effectors of plant-parasitic nematodes. HYP effectors are single-gene loci that potentially harbor thousands of alleles. Alleles vary in the organization, as well as the number, of motifs within a central hyper-variable domain (HVD). We dramatically expand the HYP repertoire of two plant-parasitic nematodes and define distinct species-specific "rules" underlying the apparently flawless genetic rearrangements. Finally, by analyzing the HYPs in 68 individual nematodes, we unexpectedly found that despite the huge number of alleles, most individuals are germline homozygous. These data support a mechanism of programmed genetic variation, termed HVD editing, where alterations are locus specific, strictly governed by rules, and theoretically produce thousands of variants without errors.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Alleles
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Cell Genom
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Reino Unido
Country of publication:
Estados Unidos