Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia 06100, Italy.
Science. 2015 Feb 27;347(6225):985-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1259435.
The availability of genome sequences from 16 anopheline species provides unprecedented opportunities to study the evolution of reproductive traits relevant for malaria transmission. In Anopheles gambiae, a likely candidate for sexual selection is male 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E). Sexual transfer of this steroid hormone as part of a mating plug dramatically changes female physiological processes intimately tied to vectorial capacity. By combining phenotypic studies with ancestral state reconstructions and phylogenetic analyses, we show that mating plug transfer and male 20E synthesis are both derived characters that have coevolved in anophelines, driving the adaptation of a female 20E-interacting protein that promotes oogenesis via mechanisms also favoring Plasmodium survival. Our data reveal coevolutionary dynamics of reproductive traits between the sexes likely to have shaped the ability of anophelines to transmit malaria.
16 种按蚊种基因组序列的可用性为研究与疟疾传播相关的生殖特征的进化提供了前所未有的机会。在冈比亚按蚊中，雄性 20-羟蜕皮酮（20E）可能是性选择的一个候选者。这种类固醇激素作为交配塞的一部分进行的性转移，极大地改变了与病媒传播能力密切相关的雌性生理过程。通过将表型研究与祖先状态重建和系统发育分析相结合，我们表明交配塞转移和雄性 20E 合成都是衍生特征，它们在按蚊中共同进化，驱动了一种雌性 20E 相互作用蛋白的适应，该蛋白通过也有利于疟原虫存活的机制促进卵母细胞发生。我们的数据揭示了两性之间生殖特征的协同进化动态，这些动态可能塑造了按蚊传播疟疾的能力。
