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A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla

Pyrosomes are tunicates in the phylum Chordata, which also contains vertebrates. Their gigantic blooms play important ecological and biogeochemical roles in oceans. Pyrosoma, meaning “fire-body”, derives from their brilliant bioluminescence. The biochemistry of this light production is unknown, but...

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Autores principales: Tessler, Michael, Gaffney, Jean P., Oliveira, Anderson G., Guarnaccia, Andrew, Dobi, Krista C., Gujarati, Nehaben A., Galbraith, Moira, Mirza, Jeremy D., Sparks, John S., Pieribone, Vincent A., Wood, Robert J., Gruber, David F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7576829/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33082360
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73446-w
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author Tessler, Michael
Gaffney, Jean P.
Oliveira, Anderson G.
Guarnaccia, Andrew
Dobi, Krista C.
Gujarati, Nehaben A.
Galbraith, Moira
Mirza, Jeremy D.
Sparks, John S.
Pieribone, Vincent A.
Wood, Robert J.
Gruber, David F.
author_facet Tessler, Michael
Gaffney, Jean P.
Oliveira, Anderson G.
Guarnaccia, Andrew
Dobi, Krista C.
Gujarati, Nehaben A.
Galbraith, Moira
Mirza, Jeremy D.
Sparks, John S.
Pieribone, Vincent A.
Wood, Robert J.
Gruber, David F.
author_sort Tessler, Michael
collection PubMed
description Pyrosomes are tunicates in the phylum Chordata, which also contains vertebrates. Their gigantic blooms play important ecological and biogeochemical roles in oceans. Pyrosoma, meaning “fire-body”, derives from their brilliant bioluminescence. The biochemistry of this light production is unknown, but has been hypothesized to be bacterial in origin. We found that mixing coelenterazine—a eukaryote-specific luciferin—with Pyrosoma atlanticum homogenate produced light. To identify the bioluminescent machinery, we sequenced P. atlanticum transcriptomes and found a sequence match to a cnidarian luciferase (RLuc). We expressed this novel luciferase (PyroLuc) and, combined with coelenterazine, it produced light. A similar gene was recently predicted from a bioluminescent brittle star, indicating that RLuc-like luciferases may have evolved convergently from homologous dehalogenases across phyla (Cnidaria, Echinodermata, and Chordata). This report indicates that a widespread gene may be able to functionally converge, resulting in bioluminescence across animal phyla, and describes and characterizes the first putative chordate luciferase.
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spelling pubmed-75768292020-10-23 A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla Tessler, Michael Gaffney, Jean P. Oliveira, Anderson G. Guarnaccia, Andrew Dobi, Krista C. Gujarati, Nehaben A. Galbraith, Moira Mirza, Jeremy D. Sparks, John S. Pieribone, Vincent A. Wood, Robert J. Gruber, David F. Sci Rep Article Pyrosomes are tunicates in the phylum Chordata, which also contains vertebrates. Their gigantic blooms play important ecological and biogeochemical roles in oceans. Pyrosoma, meaning “fire-body”, derives from their brilliant bioluminescence. The biochemistry of this light production is unknown, but has been hypothesized to be bacterial in origin. We found that mixing coelenterazine—a eukaryote-specific luciferin—with Pyrosoma atlanticum homogenate produced light. To identify the bioluminescent machinery, we sequenced P. atlanticum transcriptomes and found a sequence match to a cnidarian luciferase (RLuc). We expressed this novel luciferase (PyroLuc) and, combined with coelenterazine, it produced light. A similar gene was recently predicted from a bioluminescent brittle star, indicating that RLuc-like luciferases may have evolved convergently from homologous dehalogenases across phyla (Cnidaria, Echinodermata, and Chordata). This report indicates that a widespread gene may be able to functionally converge, resulting in bioluminescence across animal phyla, and describes and characterizes the first putative chordate luciferase. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7576829/ /pubmed/33082360 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73446-w Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Tessler, Michael
Gaffney, Jean P.
Oliveira, Anderson G.
Guarnaccia, Andrew
Dobi, Krista C.
Gujarati, Nehaben A.
Galbraith, Moira
Mirza, Jeremy D.
Sparks, John S.
Pieribone, Vincent A.
Wood, Robert J.
Gruber, David F.
A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla
title A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla
title_full A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla
title_fullStr A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla
title_full_unstemmed A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla
title_short A putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla
title_sort putative chordate luciferase from a cosmopolitan tunicate indicates convergent bioluminescence evolution across phyla
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7576829/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33082360
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73446-w
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