Bacterial contribution to genesis of the novel germ line determinant oskar

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Abstract

New cellular functions and developmental processes can evolve by modifying existing genes or creating novel genes. Novel genes can arise not only via duplication or mutation but also by acquiring foreign DNA, also called horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Here we show that HGT likely contributed to the creation of a novel gene indispensable for reproduction in some insects. Long considered a novel gene with unknown origin, oskar has evolved to fulfil a crucial role in insect germ cell formation. Our analysis of over 100 insect Oskar sequences suggests that Oskar arose de novo via fusion of eukaryotic and prokaryotic sequences. This work shows that highly unusual gene origin processes can give rise to novel genes that can facilitate evolution of novel developmental mechanisms.

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Leo Blondel

Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2276-4821
Tamsin E M Jones

HGNC, European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0027-0858
Cassandra G Extavour

Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology/Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

For correspondence
extavour@oeb.harvard.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2922-5855

Funding

Harvard University

Leo Blondel

Harvard University

Cassandra G Extavour

Harvard University

Tamsin E M Jones

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.