Abstract
Among the many physiological changes that occurred during the transition from an aquatic to a terrestrial lifestyle by early vertebrates, blood coagulation has an interesting history. Blood coagulation genes, originally composed of a single pathway in fishes, have expanded to include a second pathway in the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates. However, genes of this second pathway have been secondarily lost in many lineages, as is the case for cetaceans, which returned to the aquatic environment during their evolution. Herein, we investigated the selective pressures on blood coagulation genes in a phylogenetic framework, focusing on fishes and cetaceans. Taking advantage of the availability of the genetic sequences of many vertebrate lineages and using a combination of bioinformatic tools, our results showed a diverse history of gene losses and gains, with different selective pressures acting on different genes of the blood coagulation functional pathway. In addition, there was no evidence of a clear convergent molecular evolution between cetaceans and fishes, highlighting that there are many possible evolutionary mechanisms with regard to a functional pathway that involves many genes.
Highlights
Understanding the genetic basis behind ecological transitions, such as the conquest of land by early vertebrates and the return to water by later vertebrate lineages has become a central topic in evolutionary biology
Fish clades contained only genes from the tissue factor (TF) pathway and in tetrapods, we observed the emergence of the F12 and F11-KLKB1 genes, which belong to the contact pathway (CP)
We wanted to study the influence of the similar selective pressure exerted by the aquatic environment on the evolutionary history of these genes
Summary
Understanding the genetic basis behind ecological transitions, such as the conquest of land by early vertebrates and the return to water by later vertebrate lineages has become a central topic in evolutionary biology. One interesting characteristic that has appeared during early vertebrate evolution, which has changed along with vertebrate evolution, is the blood coagulation system. The cascades can be arbitrarily divided based on their initial activation process, comprising two pathways: the tissue factor pathway ( called the extrinsic pathway), and the contact pathway ( called the intrinsic pathway). The components of these pathways are known as “factors.” Most of these factors belong to the serine protease family and bear some level of homology (Furie and Furie, 1988)
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