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MBE Advance Access published online on April 2, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msn076
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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

Novel transcriptome patterns accompany evolutionary restoration of defective social development in the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus

Supriya V. Kadam*, Sigrun Wegener-Feldbrügge+, Lotte Søgaard-Andersen+ and Gregory J. Velicer*,{perp},{dagger}

* Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany
+ Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany
{perp} Indiana University, USA

{dagger} Corresponding author: Gregory J. Velicer, Dept. of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1001 E. 3rd St., Bloomington, IN, Phone: (812) 856-2586, Fax: (812) 855-6705, Email: gvelicer{at}indiana.edu

Received for publication September 8, 2007. Revision received February 22, 2008. Accepted for publication February 27, 2008.

Evolutionary trait losses can be restored by direct reversion or by compensatory pathways. Upon starvation, the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus develops into spore-bearing fruiting bodies, but this ability can be rapidly lost during evolution. Some developmentally defective strains of M. xanthus ‘cheat’ on proficient strains during development by superior sporulation in mixed cultures. Here, we examine transcriptomic patterns accompanying the evolution of a cheater (OC) to a developmentally competent strain (PX) by a single mutation. Using quantitative RT-PCR analysis of five genes essential for development, we initially show that restoration of development in strain PX was associated with increased expression of four of these genes, not only relative to OC but also relative to the developmentally proficient ancestor of both OC and PX (WT). Global transcriptome analyses showed further that developmental expression of well more than 100 genes differ significantly between PX and the proficient WT ancestor. Moreover, the expression profile of PX was found to differ from that of WT more than does that of the defective intermediate strain OC. These results show that the restoration of a complex trait is accompanied by novel expression patterns across a large number and wide variety of genes, rather than by a large-scale return to ancestral expression patterns.

Key Words: Myxococus xanthus • social development • reverse evolution • transcriptome


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