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Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids
BACKGROUND: Elasmoid scales are one of the most common dermal appendages and can be found in almost all species of bony fish differing greatly in their shape. Whilst the genetic underpinnings behind elasmoid scale development have been investigated, not much is known about the mechanisms involved in...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8908630/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35272610 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-01984-0 |
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author | Wagner, Maximilian Bračun, Sandra Duenser, Anna Sturmbauer, Christian Gessl, Wolfgang Ahi, Ehsan Pashay |
author_facet | Wagner, Maximilian Bračun, Sandra Duenser, Anna Sturmbauer, Christian Gessl, Wolfgang Ahi, Ehsan Pashay |
author_sort | Wagner, Maximilian |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Elasmoid scales are one of the most common dermal appendages and can be found in almost all species of bony fish differing greatly in their shape. Whilst the genetic underpinnings behind elasmoid scale development have been investigated, not much is known about the mechanisms involved in moulding of scales. To investigate the links between gene expression differences and morphological divergence, we inferred shape variation of scales from two different areas of the body (anterior and posterior) stemming from ten haplochromine cichlid species from different origins (Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, Lake Victoria and riverine). Additionally, we investigated transcriptional differences of a set of genes known to be involved in scale development and morphogenesis in fish. RESULTS: We found that scales from the anterior and posterior part of the body strongly differ in their overall shape, and a separate look on scales from each body part revealed similar trajectories of shape differences considering the lake origin of single investigated species. Above all, nine as well as 11 out of 16 target genes showed expression differences between the lakes for the anterior and posterior dataset, respectively. Whereas in posterior scales four genes (dlx5, eda, rankl and shh) revealed significant correlations between expression and morphological differentiation, in anterior scales only one gene (eda) showed such a correlation. Furthermore, eda displayed the most significant expression difference between species of Lake Tanganyika and species of the other two younger lakes. Finally, we found genetic differences in downstream regions of eda gene (e.g., in the eda-tnfsf13b inter-genic region) that are associated with observed expression differences. This is reminiscent of a genetic difference in the eda-tnfsf13b inter-genic region which leads to gain or loss of armour plates in stickleback. CONCLUSION: These findings provide evidence for cross-species transcriptional differences of an important morphogenetic factor, eda, which is involved in formation of ectodermal appendages. These expression differences appeared to be associated with morphological differences observed in the scales of haplochromine cichlids indicating potential role of eda mediated signal in divergent scale morphogenesis in fish. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-022-01984-0. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8908630 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89086302022-03-18 Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids Wagner, Maximilian Bračun, Sandra Duenser, Anna Sturmbauer, Christian Gessl, Wolfgang Ahi, Ehsan Pashay BMC Ecol Evol Research BACKGROUND: Elasmoid scales are one of the most common dermal appendages and can be found in almost all species of bony fish differing greatly in their shape. Whilst the genetic underpinnings behind elasmoid scale development have been investigated, not much is known about the mechanisms involved in moulding of scales. To investigate the links between gene expression differences and morphological divergence, we inferred shape variation of scales from two different areas of the body (anterior and posterior) stemming from ten haplochromine cichlid species from different origins (Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, Lake Victoria and riverine). Additionally, we investigated transcriptional differences of a set of genes known to be involved in scale development and morphogenesis in fish. RESULTS: We found that scales from the anterior and posterior part of the body strongly differ in their overall shape, and a separate look on scales from each body part revealed similar trajectories of shape differences considering the lake origin of single investigated species. Above all, nine as well as 11 out of 16 target genes showed expression differences between the lakes for the anterior and posterior dataset, respectively. Whereas in posterior scales four genes (dlx5, eda, rankl and shh) revealed significant correlations between expression and morphological differentiation, in anterior scales only one gene (eda) showed such a correlation. Furthermore, eda displayed the most significant expression difference between species of Lake Tanganyika and species of the other two younger lakes. Finally, we found genetic differences in downstream regions of eda gene (e.g., in the eda-tnfsf13b inter-genic region) that are associated with observed expression differences. This is reminiscent of a genetic difference in the eda-tnfsf13b inter-genic region which leads to gain or loss of armour plates in stickleback. CONCLUSION: These findings provide evidence for cross-species transcriptional differences of an important morphogenetic factor, eda, which is involved in formation of ectodermal appendages. These expression differences appeared to be associated with morphological differences observed in the scales of haplochromine cichlids indicating potential role of eda mediated signal in divergent scale morphogenesis in fish. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-022-01984-0. BioMed Central 2022-03-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8908630/ /pubmed/35272610 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-01984-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis 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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Wagner, Maximilian Bračun, Sandra Duenser, Anna Sturmbauer, Christian Gessl, Wolfgang Ahi, Ehsan Pashay Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids |
title | Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids |
title_full | Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids |
title_fullStr | Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids |
title_full_unstemmed | Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids |
title_short | Expression variations in ectodysplasin-A gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids |
title_sort | expression variations in ectodysplasin-a gene (eda) may contribute to morphological divergence of scales in haplochromine cichlids |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8908630/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35272610 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-01984-0 |
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