PUBLICATION
Immunogenetic losses co-occurred with seahorse male pregnancy and mutation in tlx1 accompanied functional asplenia
- Authors
- Liu, Y., Qu, M., Jiang, H., Schneider, R., Qin, G., Luo, W., Yu, H., Zhang, B., Wang, X., Zhang, Y., Zhang, H., Zhang, Z., Wu, Y., Zhang, Y., Yin, J., Zhang, S., Venkatesh, B., Roth, O., Meyer, A., Lin, Q.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-221210-14
- Date
- 2022
- Source
- Nature communications 13: 76107610 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Meyer, Axel, Venkatesh, Byrappa
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Female
- Male
- Mutation
- Reproduction/genetics
- Sexual Behavior, Animal
- Smegmamorpha*/genetics
- Zebrafish
- PubMed
- 36494371 Full text @ Nat. Commun.
Citation
Liu, Y., Qu, M., Jiang, H., Schneider, R., Qin, G., Luo, W., Yu, H., Zhang, B., Wang, X., Zhang, Y., Zhang, H., Zhang, Z., Wu, Y., Zhang, Y., Yin, J., Zhang, S., Venkatesh, B., Roth, O., Meyer, A., Lin, Q. (2022) Immunogenetic losses co-occurred with seahorse male pregnancy and mutation in tlx1 accompanied functional asplenia. Nature communications. 13:76107610.
Abstract
In the highly derived syngnathid fishes (pipefishes, seadragons & seahorses), the evolution of sex-role reversed brooding behavior culminated in the seahorse lineage's male pregnancy, whose males feature a specialized brood pouch into which females deposit eggs during mating. Then, eggs are intimately engulfed by a placenta-like tissue that facilitates gas and nutrient exchange. As fathers immunologically tolerate allogenic embryos, it was suggested that male pregnancy co-evolved with specific immunological adaptations. Indeed, here we show that a specific amino-acid replacement in the tlx1 transcription factor is associated with seahorses' asplenia (loss of spleen, an organ central in the immune system), as confirmed by a CRISPR-Cas9 experiment using zebrafish. Comparative genomics across the syngnathid phylogeny revealed that the complexity of the immune system gene repertoire decreases as parental care intensity increases. The synchronous evolution of immunogenetic alterations and male pregnancy supports the notion that male pregnancy co-evolved with the immunological tolerance of the embryo.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping