Journal
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Volume 32, Issue 3, Pages 767-790Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msu343
Keywords
novel traits; transcriptome; protease; parasitism; gene duplication; Orobanchaceae
Funding
- National Center for Biotechnology Information BioProject [SRP001053]
- NSF's Plant Genome Research Program [DBI-0701748, IOS-1238057]
- Plant Biology and Biology Department graduate programs at Penn State
- National Institute of Food and Agriculture Project [131997]
- NSF [IOS-1213059]
- International Outgoing European Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship [PIOF-GA-2009-252538]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems [1213059] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1238057] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The origin of novel traits is recognized as an important process underlying many major evolutionary radiations. We studied the genetic basis for the evolution of haustoria, the novel feeding organs of parasitic flowering plants, using comparative transcriptome sequencing in three species of Orobanchaceae. Around 180 genes are upregulated during haustorial development following host attachment in at least two species, and these are enriched in proteases, cell wall modifying enzymes, and extracellular secretion proteins. Additionally, about 100 shared genes are upregulated in response to haustorium inducing factors prior to host attachment. Collectively, we refer to these newly identified genes as putative parasitism genes. Most of these parasitism genes are derived from gene duplications in a common ancestor of Orobanchaceae and Mimulus guttatus, a related nonparasitic plant. Additionally, the signature of relaxed purifying selection and/or adaptive evolution at specific sites was detected in many haustorial genes, and may play an important role in parasite evolution. Comparative analysis of gene expression patterns in parasitic and nonparasitic angiosperms suggests that parasitism genes are derived primarily from root and floral tissues, but with some genes co-opted from other tissues. Gene duplication, often taking place in a nonparasitic ancestor of Orobanchaceae, followed by regulatory neofunctionalization, was an important process in the origin of parasitic haustoria.
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