Remarkably Duplicate Genes as Sources for Rapid Adaptive Evolution of
Sperm under Environmental Pollution in Tree Sparrow
Abstract
Environmental pollution can result in poor sperm quality either directly
or indirectly. However, adaptive and compensatory sperm morphology
change and motility improvement rapidly evolved in tree sparrow (Passer
montanus) inhabited the polluted area within the past 65 years. To
identify the genetic underpinnings of the rapidly evolved sperm
phenotype, both the population genomic and transcriptomic methods were
used in our study. We identified a gene encoding serine/threonine
protein kinase PIM1 which may drive the rapid phenotypic evolution of
sperm. An unprecedent and remarkably expansion of PIM gene family caused
by tandem and segmental duplication of PIM1 was subsequently noticed in
tree sparrow genome. Most of the PIM1 duplicates showed a
testis-specific expression pattern, suggesting their functions related
to male reproduction. Furthermore, the elevated expression level of PIM1
was consistent with our earlier findings of longer and faster swimming
sperm in polluted site, indicating an important role of duplicated PIM1
in facilitating rapid evolution of sperm. Our results suggested that the
duplicated PIM1 provide sources of genetic variation that enable rapid
evolution of sperm under environmental heavy metal pollution. The
findings in this study verified the duplicated genes can be targets of
selection and predominant sources for rapid adaptation to environmental
change and shed lights on the sperm evolution under environmental
stress.