Genome Dynamics and Temperature Adaptation During Experimental Evolution of Obligate Intracellular Bacteria

Author(s)
Paul Herrera, Lisa Schuster, Markus Zojer, Hyunsoo Na, Jasmin Schwarz, Florian Wascher, Thomas Kempinger, Andreas Regner, Thomas Rattei, Matthias Horn
Abstract

Evolution experiments with free-living microbes have radically improved our understanding of genome evolution and how microorganisms adapt. Yet there is a paucity of such research focusing on strictly host-associated bacteria, even though they are widespread in nature. Here, we used the Acanthamoeba symbiont Protochlamydia amoebophila, a distant relative of the human pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis and representative of a large group of protist-associated environmental chlamydiae, as a model to study how obligate intracellular symbionts evolve and adapt to elevated temperature, a prerequisite for the pivotal evolutionary leap from protist to endothermic animal hosts. We established 12 replicate populations under two temperatures (20 °C, 30 °C) for 510 bacterial generations (38 months). We then used infectivity assays and pooled whole-genome resequencing to identify any evolved phenotypes and the molecular basis of adaptation in these bacteria. We observed an overall reduction in infectivity of the symbionts evolved at 30 °C, and we identified numerous nonsynonymous mutations and small indels in these symbiont populations, with several variants persisting throughout multiple time points and reaching high frequencies. This suggests that many mutations may have been beneficial and played an adaptive role. Mutated genes within the same temperature regime were more similar than those between temperature regimes. Our results provide insights into the molecular evolution of intracellular bacteria under the constraints of strict host dependance and highly structured populations and suggest that for chlamydial symbionts of protists, temperature adaptation was facilitated through attenuation of symbiont infectivity as a tradeoff to reduce host cell burden.

Organisation(s)
Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science
External organisation(s)
University of Vienna
Journal
Genome Biology and Evolution
Volume
15
No. of pages
16
ISSN
1759-6653
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evad139
Publication date
07-2023
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
106026 Ecosystem research, 106022 Microbiology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General Medicine
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/4099ed40-36a1-4c92-aea0-b5a725e70e77