A New World Monkey Resembles Human in Bitter Taste Receptor Evolution and Function via a Single Parallel Amino Acid Substitution
Abstract Bitter taste receptors serve as a vital component in the defense system against toxin intake by animals, and the family of genes encoding these receptors has been demonstrated, usually by family size variance, to correlate with dietary preference. However, few systematic studies of specific...
Saved in:
Published in | Molecular biology and evolution Vol. 38; no. 12; pp. 5472 - 5479 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Oxford University Press
09.12.2021
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | Abstract
Bitter taste receptors serve as a vital component in the defense system against toxin intake by animals, and the family of genes encoding these receptors has been demonstrated, usually by family size variance, to correlate with dietary preference. However, few systematic studies of specific Tas2R to unveil their functional evolution have been conducted. Here, we surveyed Tas2R16 across all major clades of primates and reported a rare case of a convergent change to increase sensitivity to β-glucopyranosides in human and a New World monkey, the white-faced saki. Combining analyses at multiple levels, we demonstrate that a parallel amino acid substitution (K172N) shared by these two species is responsible for this functional convergence of Tas2R16. Considering the specialized feeding preference of the white-faced saki, the K172N change likely played an important adaptive role in its early evolution to avoid potentially toxic cyanogenic glycosides, as suggested for the human TAS2R16 gene. |
---|---|
Bibliography: | Hui Yang and Songlin Yang authors contributed equally to this work. |
ISSN: | 1537-1719 0737-4038 1537-1719 |
DOI: | 10.1093/molbev/msab263 |