Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, United States.
Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, United States.
Front Immunol. 2023 Sep 26;14:1250229. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1250229. eCollection 2023.
High viral tolerance coupled with an extraordinary regulation of the immune response makes bats a great model to study host-pathogen evolution. Although many immune-related gene gains and losses have been previously reported in bats, important gene families such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) remain understudied. We built an exhaustive bioinformatic pipeline targeting the major gene families of defensins and cathelicidins to explore AMP diversity and analyze their evolution and distribution across six bat families. A combination of manual and automated procedures identified 29 AMP families across queried species, with α-, β-defensins, and cathelicidins representing around 10% of AMP diversity. Gene duplications were inferred in both α-defensins, which were absent in five species, and three β-defensin gene subfamilies, but cathelicidins did not show significant shifts in gene family size and were absent in and the pteropodids. Based on lineage-specific gains and losses, we propose diet and diet-related microbiome evolution may determine the evolution of α- and β-defensins gene families and subfamilies. These results highlight the importance of building species-specific libraries for genome annotation in non-model organisms and shed light on possible drivers responsible for the rapid evolution of AMPs. By focusing on these understudied defenses, we provide a robust framework for explaining bat responses to pathogens.
高病毒耐受性加上对免疫反应的非凡调节，使蝙蝠成为研究宿主-病原体进化的理想模型。尽管以前已经报道了许多与免疫相关的基因获得和缺失，但重要的基因家族，如抗菌肽 (AMPs)，仍未得到充分研究。我们构建了一个详尽的生物信息学管道，针对防御素和 cathelicidins 的主要基因家族进行研究，以探索 AMP 的多样性，并分析它们在六个蝙蝠科中的进化和分布。手动和自动程序的组合鉴定了跨查询物种的 29 种 AMP 家族，其中α-、β-防御素和 cathelicidins 约占 AMP 多样性的 10%。在五种物种中不存在的α-防御素和三个β-防御素基因亚家族中推断出基因复制，但 cathelicidins 没有显示基因家族大小的显著变化，并且在 和翼手目科中不存在。基于谱系特异性的获得和缺失，我们提出饮食和与饮食相关的微生物组进化可能决定了α-和β-防御素基因家族和亚家族的进化。这些结果强调了在非模式生物中为基因组注释构建物种特异性文库的重要性，并阐明了可能导致 AMP 快速进化的驱动因素。通过关注这些研究不足的防御机制，我们为解释蝙蝠对病原体的反应提供了一个强大的框架。
