The red death meets the abdominal bristle: Polygenic mutation for susceptibility to a bacterial pathogen in Caenorhabditis elegans

Veronique Etienne, Erik C. Andersen, José Miguel Ponciano, Dustin Blanton, Analucia Cadavid, Joanna Joyner-Matos, Chikako Matsuba, Brandon Tabman, Charles F. Baer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Understanding the genetic basis of susceptibility to pathogens is an important goal of medicine and of evolutionary biology. A key first step toward understanding the genetics and evolution of any phenotypic trait is characterizing the role of mutation. However, the rate at which mutation introduces genetic variance for pathogen susceptibility in any organism is essentially unknown. Here, we quantify the per-generation input of genetic variance by mutation (VM) for susceptibility of Caenorhabditis elegans to the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa (defined as the median time of death, LT50). VM for LT50 is slightly less than VM for a variety of life-history and morphological traits in this strain of C. elegans, but is well within the range of reported values in a variety of organisms. Mean LT50 did not change significantly over 250 generations of mutation accumulation. Comparison of VM to the standing genetic variance (VG) implies a strength of selection against new mutations of a few tenths of a percent. These results suggest that the substantial standing genetic variation for susceptibility of C. elegans to P. aeruginosa can be explained by polygenic mutation coupled with purifying selection.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)508-519
Number of pages12
JournalEvolution
Volume69
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 1 2015

Keywords

  • LT50
  • Mutation accumulation
  • Mutational bias
  • Mutational variance
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa
  • Spontaneous mutation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all)
  • Genetics
  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The red death meets the abdominal bristle: Polygenic mutation for susceptibility to a bacterial pathogen in Caenorhabditis elegans'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this