Evidence for Divergent Selection on Immune Genes between the African Malaria Vectors, Anopheles coluzzii and A. gambiae

During their life cycles, microbes infecting mosquitoes encounter components of the mosquito anti-microbial innate immune defenses. Many of these immune responses also mediate susceptibility to malaria parasite infection. In West Africa, the primary malaria vectors are and sensu stricto, which is su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Insects (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2020-12, Vol.11 (12), p.893
Main Authors: Lee, Yoosook, Souvannaseng, Lattha, Collier, Travis C, Main, Bradley J, Norris, Laura C, Fofana, Abdarahamane, Traoré, Sekou F, Cornel, Anthony J, Luckhart, Shirley, Lanzaro, Gregory C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Anopheles coluzzii
Antiinfectives and antibacterials
Chromosomes
Culicidae
Data analysis
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Divergence
DNA
ecological divergence
Genes
Genomes
Genomics
Genotyping
Growth factors
Hypotheses
immune genes
Immune response
Infections
Kinases
Laboratories
Life cycles
Linkage disequilibrium
Malaria
Maximum likelihood method
Microorganisms
Mosquitoes
Mutation
Parasites
Permutations
Raf protein
Savannahs
Single-nucleotide polymorphism
Software
Speciation
Tumor necrosis factor-TNF
Vector-borne diseases
Vectors
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Summary:During their life cycles, microbes infecting mosquitoes encounter components of the mosquito anti-microbial innate immune defenses. Many of these immune responses also mediate susceptibility to malaria parasite infection. In West Africa, the primary malaria vectors are and sensu stricto, which is subdivided into the Bamako and Savanna sub-taxa. Here, we performed whole genome comparisons of the three taxa as well as genotyping of 333 putatively functional SNPs located in 58 immune signaling genes. Genome data support significantly higher differentiation in immune genes compared with a randomly selected set of non-immune genes among the three taxa (permutation test < 0.001). Among the 58 genes studied, the majority had one or more segregating mutations (72.9%) that were significantly diverged among the three taxa. Genes detected to be under selection include and . Despite the genome-wide distribution of immune genes, a high level of linkage disequilibrium (r > 0.8) was detected in over 27% of SNP pairs. We discuss the potential role of immune gene divergence as adaptations to the different larval habitats associated with taxa and as a potential force driving ecological speciation in this group of mosquitoes.
ISSN:2075-4450
2075-4450
DOI:10.3390/insects11120893