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MBE Advance Access published online on February 27, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msn038
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Article

Conserved features and evolutionary shifts of the EDA signaling pathway involved in vertebrate skin appendage development

Sophie Pantalacci1, Arnaud Chaumot2, Gérard Benoît1, Alexa Sadier1, Frédéric Delsuc3, Emmanuel JP Douzery3 and Vincent Laudet1

1 Université de Lyon, Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, Molecular Zoology Team, Institut Fédératif Biosciences 128 Gerland Lyon Sud ; Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INRA, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France
2 Cemagref, Laboratoire d'écotoxicologie, 3bis quai Chauveau, CP 220, 69336 LYON Cedex 09, France
3 Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier, UMR 5554 du CNRS, Paléontologie, Paléobiologie & Phylogénie, cc064, Université Montpellier II, Place E. Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier cedex 5, France

Correspondence to: Sophie Pantalacci and Vincent Laudet, IGFL, ENS de Lyon, 46 allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France Tel: +33 4 72 72 81 90; Fax: +33 4 72 72 80 80; e-mail: sophie.pantalacci{at}ens-lyon.fr; vincent.laudet{at}ens-lyon.fr

Received for publication November 8, 2007. Revision received January 31, 2008. Accepted for publication January 31, 2008.

It is widely accepted that evolutionary changes in conserved developmental signaling pathways play an important role in morphological evolution. However few in silico studies were interested in tracking such changes in a signaling pathway. The Ectodysplasin (EDA) pathway provides an opportunity to fill this gap, since it is involved in vertebrate skin appendage development such as scales, teeth, hair and feathers that take an obvious part in the adaptation of species to their environment. We benefited from the large amount of genomic data now available to explore the evolution of the upstream genes of the EDA pathway. In mammals, these genes are eda (encoding two ligands, EDA-A1 and EDA-A2), edar (EDA-A1 receptor), edaradd (EDAR adaptor), xedar (EDA-A2 receptor) and troy (a XEDAR-related receptor). We show that the evolution of EDA pathway genes combines both strongly conserved features and evolutionary shifts. These shifts are found at different signaling levels (from the ligand to intracellular signaling) and at different taxonomic levels (class, sub-order, genera). While conserved features likely participate to the similarities found in the early development of vertebrate skin appendages, these shifts might account for innovations and specializations. Moreover, our study demonstrates that we can now benefit from the large number of sequenced vertebrate genomes to explore the evolution of specific signaling pathways, and thereby to open new perspectives for developmental biology and evo-devo.

Key Words: signaling pathway • comparative genomics • EDA • Ectodysplasin • evolutionary developmental biology • skin appendages


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