The evolutionary path of chemosensory and flagellar macromolecular machines in Campylobacterota

PLoS Genet. 2022 Jul 14;18(7):e1010316. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010316. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Abstract

The evolution of macromolecular complex is a fundamental biological question, which is related to the origin of life and also guides our practice in synthetic biology. The chemosensory system is one of the complex structures that evolved very early in bacteria and displays enormous diversity and complexity in terms of composition and array structure in modern species. However, how the diversity and complexity of the chemosensory system evolved remains unclear. Here, using the Campylobacterota phylum with a robust "eco-evo" framework, we investigated the co-evolution of the chemosensory system and one of its important signaling outputs, flagellar machinery. Our analyses show that substantial flagellar gene alterations will lead to switch of its primary chemosensory class from one to another, or result in a hybrid of two classes. Unexpectedly, we discovered that the high-torque generating flagellar motor structure of Campylobacter jejuni and Helicobacter pylori likely evolved in the last common ancestor of the Campylobacterota phylum. Later lineages that experienced significant flagellar alterations lost some key components of complex scaffolding structures, thus derived simpler structures than their ancestor. Overall, this study revealed the co-evolutionary path of the chemosensory system and flagellar system, and highlights that the evolution of flagellar structural complexity requires more investigation in the Bacteria domain based on a resolved phylogenetic framework, with no assumptions on the evolutionary direction.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Bacterial Proteins / chemistry
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics
  • Campylobacter jejuni* / genetics
  • Flagella / genetics
  • Helicobacter pylori*
  • Phylogeny

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins

Grants and funding

This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31870064 to B.G.), Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (GML2019ZD0407 to B.G.), Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA19060301 to B.G.), and Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NO.ISEE2021ZD03 to B.G.).The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.