Departamento de Ingeniería Genética, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Unidad Irapuato, Irapuato, Mexico.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States.
Elife. 2021 Apr 7;10:e64682. doi: 10.7554/eLife.64682.
We examine how a complex transcription network composed of seven 'master' regulators and hundreds of target genes evolved over a span of approximately 70 million years. The network controls biofilm formation in several species, a group of fungi that are present in humans both as constituents of the microbiota and as opportunistic pathogens. Using a variety of approaches, we observed two major types of changes that have occurred in the biofilm network since the four extant species we examined last shared a common ancestor. Master regulator 'substitutions' occurred over relatively long evolutionary times, resulting in different species having overlapping but different sets of master regulators of biofilm formation. Second, massive changes in the connections between the master regulators and their target genes occurred over much shorter timescales. We believe this analysis is the first detailed, empirical description of how a complex transcription network has evolved.
我们研究了一个由七个“主”调控因子和数百个靶基因组成的复杂转录网络，在大约 7000 万年的时间里是如何进化的。该网络控制着几种物种的生物膜形成，这些真菌是人类微生物群的组成部分，也是机会性病原体。我们使用各种方法观察到，自从我们研究的四个现存物种最后一次共享一个共同祖先以来，生物膜网络中已经发生了两种主要的变化。主调控因子的“替换”发生在相对较长的进化时间内，导致不同的物种具有重叠但不同的生物膜形成主调控因子集。其次，主调控因子与其靶基因之间的连接在更短的时间内发生了巨大变化。我们相信，这种分析是对复杂转录网络如何进化的第一个详细的、经验性的描述。
