Taylor, Tiffany B., Mulley, Geraldine, Dills, Alexander H. et al. (7 more authors) (2015) Evolutionary resurrection of flagellar motility via rewiring of the nitrogen regulation system. Science. pp. 1014-1017. ISSN 0036-8075
Abstract
A central process in evolution is the recruitment of genes to regulatory networks. We engineered immotile strains of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens that lack flagella due to deletion of the regulatory gene fleQ. Under strong selection for motility, these bacteria consistently regained flagella within 96 hours via a two-step evolutionary pathway. Step 1 mutations increase intracellular levels of phosphorylated NtrC, a distant homolog of FleQ, which begins to commandeer control of the fleQ regulon at the cost of disrupting nitrogen uptake and assimilation. Step 2 is a switch-of-function mutation that redirects NtrC away from nitrogen uptake and toward its novel function as a flagellar regulator. Our results demonstrate that natural selection can rapidly rewire regulatory networks in very few, repeatable mutational steps.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Authors 2015. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Science. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Biology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 09 Nov 2015 13:01 |
Last Modified: | 17 Mar 2025 00:06 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1259145 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1126/science.1259145 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:91020 |
Download
Filename: Flagellum_paper_Last_Submitted_Version.pdf
Description: Flagellum paper Last Submitted Version