PRC, CNRS, IFCE, INRA, Université de Tours, 37380, Nouzilly, France.
Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l'Insecte (IRBI), UMR 7261, CNRS-Université de Tours, 37200, Tours, France.
BMC Evol Biol. 2019 Jul 3;19(1):137. doi: 10.1186/s12862-019-1462-8.
Previously, we have demonstrated that genes involved in ovarian function are highly conserved throughout evolution. In this study, we aimed to document the conservation of genes involved in spermatogenesis from flies to vertebrates and their expression profiles in vertebrates.
We retrieved 379 Drosophila melanogaster genes that are functionally involved in male reproduction according to their mutant phenotypes and listed their vertebrate orthologs. 83% of the fly genes have at least one vertebrate ortholog for a total of 625 mouse orthologs. This conservation percentage is almost twice as high as the 42% rate for the whole fly genome and is similar to that previously found for genes preferentially expressed in ovaries. Of the 625 mouse orthologs, we selected 68 mouse genes of interest, 42 of which exhibited a predominant relative expression in testes and 26 were their paralogs. These 68 mouse genes exhibited 144 and 60 orthologs in chicken and zebrafish, respectively, gathered in 28 groups of paralogs. Almost two thirds of the chicken orthologs and half of the zebrafish orthologs exhibited a relative expression ≥50% in testis. Finally, our focus on functional in silico data demonstrated that most of these genes were involved in the germ cell process, primarily in structure elaboration/maintenance and in acid nucleic metabolism.
Our work confirms that the genes involved in germ cell development are highly conserved across evolution in vertebrates and invertebrates and display a high rate of conservation of preferential testicular expression among vertebrates. Among the genes highlighted in this study, three mouse genes (Lrrc46, Pabpc6 and Pkd2l1) have not previously been described in the testes, neither their zebrafish nor chicken orthologs. The phylogenetic approach developed in this study finally allows considering new testicular genes for further fundamental studies in vertebrates, including model species (mouse and zebrafish).
此前，我们已经证明，参与卵巢功能的基因在整个进化过程中高度保守。在这项研究中，我们旨在记录从苍蝇到脊椎动物的精子发生过程中涉及的基因的保守性及其在脊椎动物中的表达谱。
我们根据突变表型从果蝇中检索到 379 个参与雄性生殖的功能相关基因，并列出了它们在脊椎动物中的直系同源基因。83%的果蝇基因至少有一个脊椎动物直系同源基因，共有 625 个小鼠直系同源基因。这个保守百分比几乎是整个果蝇基因组 42%的两倍，与以前在卵巢中优先表达的基因相似。在这 625 个小鼠直系同源基因中，我们选择了 68 个感兴趣的小鼠基因，其中 42 个在睾丸中表达较高，26 个是它们的旁系同源基因。这些 68 个小鼠基因在鸡和斑马鱼中分别有 144 个和 60 个同源基因，聚集在 28 个旁系同源基因群中。几乎三分之二的鸡同源基因和一半的斑马鱼同源基因在睾丸中表现出相对表达≥50%。最后，我们对功能的计算数据进行了关注，证明这些基因大多数参与了生殖细胞的过程，主要涉及结构的精心设计/维持和酸核酸代谢。
我们的工作证实，参与生殖细胞发育的基因在脊椎动物和无脊椎动物的进化过程中高度保守，并且在脊椎动物中优先表达睾丸的基因具有很高的保守性。在这项研究中突出的基因中，有三个小鼠基因（Lrrc46、Pabpc6 和 Pkd2l1）以前没有在睾丸中描述过，它们的斑马鱼或鸡直系同源基因也没有。本研究中开发的系统发育方法最终可以考虑新的睾丸基因，用于进一步的脊椎动物基础研究，包括模式物种（小鼠和斑马鱼）。
