English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Diminishing returns on intragenic repeat number expansion in the production of signaling peptides

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons56565

Rogers,  David W.
Max-Planck Research Group Experimental Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons56564

McConnell,  Ellen
Max-Planck Research Group Experimental Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons144588

Miller,  Eric L.
Max-Planck Research Group Experimental Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons56563

Greig,  Duncan
Max-Planck Research Group Experimental Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)

msx243.pdf
(Publisher version), 895KB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Rogers, D. W., McConnell, E., Miller, E. L., & Greig, D. (2017). Diminishing returns on intragenic repeat number expansion in the production of signaling peptides. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 34(12), 3176-3185. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msx243.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-002E-8F8B-E
Abstract
Signaling peptides enable communication between cells, both within and between individuals, and are therefore key to the control of complex physiological and behavioral responses. Since their small sizes prevent direct transmission to secretory pathways, these peptides are often produced as part of a larger polyprotein comprising precursors for multiple related or identical peptides; the physiological and behavioral consequences of this unusual gene structure are not understood. Here, we show that the number of mature-pheromone-encoding repeats in the yeast α-mating-factor gene MFα1 varies considerably between closely related isolates of both Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its sister species Saccharomyces paradoxus. Variation in repeat number has important phenotypic consequences: Increasing repeat number caused higher pheromone production and greater competitive mating success. However, the magnitude of the improvement decreased with increasing repeat number such that repeat amplification beyond that observed in natural isolates failed to generate more pheromone, and could actually reduce sexual fitness. We investigate multiple explanations for this pattern of diminishing returns and find that our results are most consistent with a translational trade-off: Increasing the number of encoded repeats results in more mature pheromone per translation event, but also generates longer transcripts thereby reducing the rate of translation—a phenomenon known as length-dependent translation. Length-dependent translation may be a powerful constraint on the evolution of genes encoding repetitive or modular proteins, with important physiological and behavioral consequences across eukaryotes.