Variable paralog expression underlies phenotype variation
- University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, United States
Abstract
Human faces are variable; we look different from one another. Craniofacial disorders further increase facial variation. To understand craniofacial variation, and how it can be buffered, we analyzed the zebrafish mef2ca mutant. When this transcription factor encoding gene is mutated, zebrafish develop dramatically variable craniofacial phenotypes. Years of selective breeding for low and high penetrance of mutant phenotypes produced strains that are either resilient, or sensitive, to the mef2ca mutation. Here we compared gene expression between these strains, which revealed that selective breeding enriched for high and low mef2ca paralog expression in the low- and high-penetrance strains, respectively. We found that mef2ca paralog expression is variable in unselected wild-type zebrafish, motivating the hypothesis that heritable variation in paralog expression underlies mutant phenotype severity and variation. In support, mutagenizing the mef2ca paralogs, mef2aa, mef2b, mef2cb, and mef2d, demonstrated modular buffering by paralogs. Specifically, some paralogs buffer severity while others buffer variability. We present a novel, mechanistic model for phenotypic variation where variable, vestigial paralog expression buffers development. These studies are a major step forward in understanding the mechanisms of facial variation, including how some genetically resilient individuals can overcome a deleterious mutation.
Data availability
All raw data are provided in supplementary data table.Sequencing dataset have been deposited in GEO. The raw, feature-barcode matrix can be accessed from the GEO database (accession number GSE163826).
Article and author information
Author details
Raisa Bailon-Zambrano
Abigail Mumme-Monheit
Jennyfer M Mitchell
Funding
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (R01 DE029193)
- James Nichols
National Science Foundation (Graduate RGRFP 201569)
- Raisa Bailon-Zambrano
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (F32 DE029995)
- Jennyfer M Mitchell
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All of our work with zebrafish has been approved by the University of Colorado Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), Protocol # 00188. Animals were euthanized by hypothermic shock followed by 1.5% sodium hypochlorite.
Reviewing Editor
- Tatjana Piotrowski, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, United States
Version history
- Received: April 5, 2022
- Preprint posted: April 28, 2022 (view preprint)
- Accepted: September 21, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: September 22, 2022 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: October 12, 2022 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2022, Bailon-Zambrano et al.
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.
Metrics
-
- 1,274
- Page views
-
- 316
- Downloads
-
- 3
- Citations
Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: PubMed Central, Crossref, Scopus.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Variable paralog expression underlies phenotype variation
eLife 11:e79247.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.79247
Further reading
-
- Cell Biology
- Developmental Biology
Cylicins are testis-specific proteins, which are exclusively expressed during spermiogenesis. In mice and humans, two Cylicins, the gonosomal X-linked Cylicin 1 (Cylc1/CYLC1) and the autosomal Cylicin 2 (Cylc2/CYLC2) genes, have been identified. Cylicins are cytoskeletal proteins with an overall positive charge due to lysine-rich repeats. While Cylicins have been localized in the acrosomal region of round spermatids, they resemble a major component of the calyx within the perinuclear theca at the posterior part of mature sperm nuclei. However, the role of Cylicins during spermiogenesis has not yet been investigated. Here, we applied CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in zygotes to establish Cylc1- and Cylc2-deficient mouse lines as a model to study the function of these proteins. Cylc1 deficiency resulted in male subfertility, whereas Cylc2-/-, Cylc1-/yCylc2+/-, and Cylc1-/yCylc2-/- males were infertile. Phenotypical characterization revealed that loss of Cylicins prevents proper calyx assembly during spermiogenesis. This results in decreased epididymal sperm counts, impaired shedding of excess cytoplasm, and severe structural malformations, ultimately resulting in impaired sperm motility. Furthermore, exome sequencing identified an infertile man with a hemizygous variant in CYLC1 and a heterozygous variant in CYLC2, displaying morphological abnormalities of the sperm including the absence of the acrosome. Thus, our study highlights the relevance and importance of Cylicins for spermiogenic remodeling and male fertility in human and mouse, and provides the basis for further studies on unraveling the complex molecular interactions between perinuclear theca proteins required during spermiogenesis.
-
- Developmental Biology
- Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
During evolution, animals have returned from land to water, adapting with morphological modifications to life in an aquatic environment. We compared the osteochondral units of the humeral head of marine and terrestrial mammals across species spanning a wide range of body weights, focusing on microstructural organization and biomechanical performance. Aquatic mammals feature cartilage with essentially random collagen fiber configuration, lacking the depth-dependent, arcade-like organization characteristic of terrestrial mammalian species. They have a less stiff articular cartilage at equilibrium with a significantly lower peak modulus, and at the osteochondral interface do not have a calcified cartilage layer, displaying only a thin, highly porous subchondral bone plate. This totally different constitution of the osteochondral unit in aquatic mammals reflects that accommodation of loading is the primordial function of the osteochondral unit. Recognizing the crucial importance of the microarchitecture-function relationship is pivotal for understanding articular biology and, hence, for the development of durable functional regenerative approaches for treatment of joint damage, which are thus far lacking.
