Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University School of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, United States.
Elife. 2017 Sep 26;6:e28802. doi: 10.7554/eLife.28802.
Pathogenic microbes confront an evolutionary conflict between the pressure to maintain genome stability and the need to adapt to mounting external stresses. Bacteria often respond with elevated mutation rates, but little evidence exists of stable eukaryotic hypermutators in nature. Whole genome resequencing of the human fungal pathogen identified an outbreak lineage characterized by a nonsense mutation in the mismatch repair component This defect results in a moderate mutation rate increase in typical genes, and a larger increase in genes containing homopolymer runs. This allows facile inactivation of genes with coding homopolymer runs including , which encodes the target of the immunosuppresive antifungal drugs FK506 and rapamycin. Our study identifies a eukaryotic hypermutator lineage spread over two continents and suggests that pathogenic eukaryotic microbes may experience similar selection pressures on mutation rate as bacterial pathogens, particularly during long periods of clonal growth or while expanding into new environments.
致病微生物面临着维持基因组稳定性的压力和适应不断增加的外部压力之间的进化冲突。细菌通常会以提高突变率作为回应,但在自然界中很少有稳定的真核超突变体的证据。对人类真菌病原体的全基因组重测序 发现了一个爆发谱系,其特征是错配修复成分 中的无义突变。这一缺陷导致典型基因的突变率适度增加,而含有同源多聚体的基因的突变率增加更大。这使得含有编码同源多聚体的基因(包括 )易于失活, 编码免疫抑制性抗真菌药物 FK506 和雷帕霉素的靶标。我们的研究确定了一个在两个大陆传播的真核超突变体谱系,并表明致病性真核微生物可能会像细菌病原体一样,在突变率方面受到类似的选择压力,特别是在长时间的克隆生长或向新环境扩张期间。