A single-nucleotide change underlies the genetic assimilation of a plastic trait
Type
ArticleAuthors
Vigne, Paul
Gimond, Clotilde

Ferrari, Céline
Vielle, Anne
Hallin, Johan

Pino-Querido, Ania

El Mouridi, Sonia
Mignerot, Laure

Frøkjær-Jensen, Christian

Boulin, Thomas

Teotónio, Henrique

Braendle, Christian
KAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionBioscience Program
Date
2021-02-03Submitted Date
2020-07-24Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/667218
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Genetic assimilation—the evolutionary process by which an environmentally induced phenotype is made constitutive—represents a fundamental concept in evolutionary biology. Thought to reflect adaptive phenotypic plasticity, matricidal hatching in nematodes is triggered by maternal nutrient deprivation to allow for protection or resource provisioning of offspring. Here, we report natural Caenorhabditis elegans populations harboring genetic variants expressing a derived state of near-constitutive matricidal hatching. These variants exhibit a single amino acid change (V530L) in KCNL-1, a small-conductance calcium-activated potassium channel subunit. This gain-of-function mutation causes matricidal hatching by strongly reducing the sensitivity to environmental stimuli triggering egg-laying. We show that reestablishing the canonical KCNL-1 protein in matricidal isolates is sufficient to restore canonical egg-laying. While highly deleterious in constant food environments, KCNL-1 V530L is maintained under fluctuating resource availability. A single point mutation can therefore underlie the genetic assimilation—by either genetic drift or selection—of an ancestrally plastic trait.Citation
Vigne, P., Gimond, C., Ferrari, C., Vielle, A., Hallin, J., Pino-Querido, A., … Braendle, C. (2021). A single-nucleotide change underlies the genetic assimilation of a plastic trait. Science Advances, 7(6), eabd9941. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd9941Sponsors
For helpful discussions and pointing out the curious phenotype of JU751, we would like to thank M.-A. Félix. For help with experimental work and data analysis, we thank B. Billard, S. Fausett, N. Poullet, G. Bouzouida, N. Schwartz-Tamoglia, N. Callemeyn-Torre, J.-A. Lepesant, R. Salle, J. Costa, and F. Mallard. For advice and helpful comments on previous versions of the manuscript, we thank E. Abouheif, L. Noble, and three anonymous reviewers. Strains and materials were provided by M.-A. Félix, the C. elegans Natural Diversity Resource (CeNDR), and the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center (CGC), which is funded by NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (P40 OD010440).C.B., C.F., C.G., and P.V.acknowledge financial support by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm), and the Université Côte d’Azur (UCA). C.B. and H.T. were supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-17-CE02-0017). H.T. and A.P.-Q. were supported by the European Research Council (FP7/2007-2013/243285) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-14-ACHN-0032-01). J.H. was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the “Investments for the Future” LABEX SIGNALIFE (ANR-11-LABX-0028-01). T.B. and S.E.M. were supported by the European Research Council (337702-Kelegans). C.F.-J. was supported by KAUST intramural funding.
Journal
Science AdvancesAdditional Links
https://advances.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd9941ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1126/sciadv.abd9941
Scopus Count
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