Evolutionarily novel genes are expressed in transgenic fish tumors and their orthologs are involved in development of progressive traits in humans

E A Matyunina,A A Makashov,A A Makashov,A P Kozlov,T V Kurbatova,T V Kurbatova,A V Emelyanov,I V Mizgirev

doi:10.1186/s13027-019-0262-5

Abstract

Earlier we suggested a new hypothesis of the possible evolutionary role of hereditary tumors (Kozlov, Evolution by tumor Neofunctionalization, 2014), and described a new class of genes – tumor specifically expressed, evolutionarily novel (TSEEN) genes - that are predicted by this hypothesis (Kozlov, Infect Agents Cancer 11:34, 2016). In this paper we studied evolutionarily novel genes expressed in fish tumors after regression, as a model of evolving organs. As evolutionarily novel genes may not yet have organismal functions, we studied the acquisition of new gene functions by comparing fish evolutionarily novel genes with their human orthologs. We found that many genes involved in development of progressive traits in humans (lung, mammary gland, placenta, ventricular septum, etc.) originated in fish and are expressed in fish tumors and tumors after regression. These findings support a possible evolutionary role of hereditary tumors, and in particular the hypothesis of evolution by tumor neofunctionalization.Research highlightsEarlier we described a new class of genes that are tumor-specifically expressed and evolutionarily novel (TSEEN). As the functions of TSEEN genes are often uncertain, we decided to study TSEEN genes of fishes so that we could trace the appearance of their new functions in higher vertebrates. We found that many human genes which are involved in development of progressive traits (placenta development, mammary gland and lung development etc.,) originated in fishes and are expressed in fish tumors.

Highlights

We are interested in the possible role of tumors in evolution
Among 343 human orthologs of fish TTRgrEEN genes, we found genes with functions that constitute progressive traits evolved on the way to humans, which do not exist in fish (Table 3), e.g., genes of lung development, mammary gland development, mammalian placenta development, ventricular septum development, etc
Here, we propose that many genes that are involved in development of progressive traits in humans originated as proto-genes in fish and were expressed in fish tumors and in tumors after regression

Summary

Introduction

We are interested in the possible role of tumors in evolution. In previous publications [22,23,24,25,26,27] the hypothesis of the possible evolutionary role of hereditary tumors was formulated. As a result of the expression of such novel genes, tumor cells may acquire new functions and differentiate in new directions, which might in turn lead to the origin of new cell types, tissues and organs [26]. One prediction is that tumors could be beneficial to the organism by performing new functional roles This prediction was addressed in previous work [26, 29], where it was shown that the «hoods» of some varieties of gold fishes such as Lionhead, Oranda, etc. The origin of simbiovilly in voles is the result of natural selection of early papillomatosis (Vorontsov, Matyunina et al Infectious Agents and Cancer (2019) 14:46

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion