Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, United States.
Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza 12613, Egypt.
J Hered. 2024 Oct 23;115(6):625-642. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esae009.
Endosperm in angiosperms and placenta in eutherians are convergent innovations for efficient embryonic nutrient transfer. Despite advantages, this reproductive strategy incurs metabolic costs that maternal parents disproportionately shoulder, leading to potential inter-parental conflict over optimal offspring investment. Genomic imprinting-parent-of-origin-biased gene expression-is fundamental for endosperm and placenta development and has convergently evolved in angiosperms and mammals, in part, to resolve parental conflict. Here, we review the mechanisms of genomic imprinting in these taxa. Despite differences in the timing and spatial extent of imprinting, these taxa exhibit remarkable convergence in the molecular machinery and genes governing imprinting. We then assess the role of parental conflict in shaping evolution within angiosperms and eutherians using four criteria: 1) Do differences in the extent of sibling relatedness cause differences in the inferred strength of parental conflict? 2) Do reciprocal crosses between taxa with different inferred histories of parental conflict exhibit parent-of-origin growth effects? 3) Are these parent-of-origin growth effects caused by dosage-sensitive mechanisms and do these loci exhibit signals of positive selection? 4) Can normal development be restored by genomic perturbations that restore stoichiometric balance in the endosperm/placenta? Although we find evidence for all criteria in angiosperms and eutherians, suggesting that parental conflict may help shape their evolution, many questions remain. Additionally, myriad differences between the two taxa suggest that their respective biologies may shape how/when/where/to what extent parental conflict manifests. Lastly, we discuss outstanding questions, highlighting the power of comparative work in quantifying the role of parental conflict in evolution.
被子植物的胚乳和真兽类动物的胎盘是高效胚胎营养转移的趋同创新。尽管有优势,但这种生殖策略会带来代谢成本,而母体父母会不成比例地承担这些成本,导致在最佳后代投资方面存在潜在的亲代间冲突。基因组印迹——亲本来源的基因表达偏倚——是胚乳和胎盘发育的基础,在被子植物和哺乳动物中也发生了趋同进化,部分原因是为了解决亲代冲突。在这里,我们回顾了这些类群中基因组印迹的机制。尽管在印迹的时间和空间范围上存在差异,但这些类群在控制印迹的分子机制和基因方面表现出显著的趋同。然后,我们使用四个标准评估亲代冲突在塑造被子植物和真兽类动物内部进化中的作用:1)兄弟姐妹关系的差异是否导致亲代冲突强度的差异?2)具有不同亲代冲突推断历史的类群之间的正反交是否表现出亲本来源的生长效应?3)这些亲本来源的生长效应是由剂量敏感机制引起的吗?这些基因座是否表现出正选择的信号?4)通过恢复胚乳/胎盘内化学计量平衡的基因组干扰,能否恢复正常发育?尽管我们在被子植物和真兽类动物中都找到了所有标准的证据,表明亲代冲突可能有助于塑造它们的进化,但仍有许多问题悬而未决。此外,这两个类群之间存在诸多差异,表明它们各自的生物学特性可能会影响亲代冲突表现的方式、时间、地点和程度。最后,我们讨论了悬而未决的问题,强调了比较工作在量化亲代冲突在进化中的作用方面的力量。