Molecular Parasitology Unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
MiVEGEC, University of Montpellier, CNRS, IRD, Montpellier, France.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2022 Jan 11;50(1):293-305. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkab1203.
Leishmania, a unicellular eukaryotic parasite, is a unique model for aneuploidy and cellular heterogeneity, along with their potential role in adaptation to environmental stresses. Somy variation within clonal populations was previously explored in a small subset of chromosomes using fluorescence hybridization methods. This phenomenon, termed mosaic aneuploidy (MA), might have important evolutionary and functional implications but remains under-explored due to technological limitations. Here, we applied and validated a high throughput single-cell genome sequencing method to study for the first time the extent and dynamics of whole karyotype heterogeneity in two clonal populations of Leishmania promastigotes representing different stages of MA evolution in vitro. We found that drastic changes in karyotypes quickly emerge in a population stemming from an almost euploid founder cell. This possibly involves polyploidization/hybridization at an early stage of population expansion, followed by assorted ploidy reduction. During further stages of expansion, MA increases by moderate and gradual karyotypic alterations, affecting a defined subset of chromosomes. Our data provide the first complete characterization of MA in Leishmania and pave the way for further functional studies.
利什曼原虫是一种单细胞真核寄生虫,是研究非整倍体和细胞异质性的独特模型,其在适应环境压力方面的潜在作用也备受关注。此前,人们曾使用荧光杂交方法在一小部分染色体上探索了克隆群体内的这种遗传变异,这种现象被称为镶嵌性非整倍体(MA),它可能具有重要的进化和功能意义,但由于技术限制,其仍未得到充分研究。在这里,我们应用并验证了一种高通量单细胞基因组测序方法,首次研究了体外代表 MA 进化不同阶段的两种利什曼原虫前鞭毛体克隆群体中整个染色体组异质性的程度和动态。我们发现,起源于几乎整倍体起始细胞的群体中,染色体组会迅速发生剧烈变化。这可能涉及到在种群扩张的早期发生的多倍体化/杂交,随后是各种不同的倍性降低。在进一步的扩张阶段,MA 通过适度和逐渐的染色体组改变而增加,影响一组特定的染色体。我们的数据首次全面描述了利什曼原虫中的 MA,并为进一步的功能研究铺平了道路。