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A Toxin-Antidote Selfish Element Increases Fitness of its Host

View ORCID ProfileLijiang Long, View ORCID ProfileWen Xu, View ORCID ProfileAnnalise B. Paaby, View ORCID ProfilePatrick T. McGrath
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.15.500229
Lijiang Long
1School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
2Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
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Wen Xu
1School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
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Annalise B. Paaby
1School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
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  • For correspondence: paaby@gatech.edu patrick.mcgrath@biology.gatech.edu
Patrick T. McGrath
1School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
3School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
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  • For correspondence: paaby@gatech.edu patrick.mcgrath@biology.gatech.edu
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ABSTRACT

Selfish genetic elements can promote their transmission at the expense of individual survival, creating conflict between the element and the rest of the genome. Recently, a large number of toxin-antidote (TA) post-segregation distorters have been identified in non-obligate outcrossing nematodes. Their origin and the evolutionary forces that keep them at intermediate population frequencies are poorly understood. Here, we study a TA element in C. elegans called peel-1/zeel-1. Two major haplotypes of this locus, with and without the selfish element, segregate in C. elegans. Here we study the fitness consequences of the peel-1/zeel-1 element outside of its role in gene drive in non-outcrossing animals. We demonstrate that loss of the toxin peel-1 decreased fitness of hermaphrodites and resulted in reductions in fecundity and body size. This fitness advantage is independent of the antidote zeel-1, suggesting that a distinct peel-1 pathway plays a biological role. This work demonstrates that a TA element can provide a fitness benefit to its hosts, either during their initial evolution or by being co-opted by the animals following their selfish spread. These findings guide our understanding on how TA elements can remain in a population where gene drive is minimized, helping resolve the mystery of prevalent TA elements in selfing animals.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted July 15, 2022.
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A Toxin-Antidote Selfish Element Increases Fitness of its Host
Lijiang Long, Wen Xu, Annalise B. Paaby, Patrick T. McGrath
bioRxiv 2022.07.15.500229; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.15.500229
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A Toxin-Antidote Selfish Element Increases Fitness of its Host
Lijiang Long, Wen Xu, Annalise B. Paaby, Patrick T. McGrath
bioRxiv 2022.07.15.500229; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.15.500229

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