The long-term goal of this project is to understand the diversity of reproductive proteins and the functional consequences of their divergence, which could involve problems in fertility and speciation due to a mismatch of sperm-egg recognition molecules. A recurring observation in the study of reproductive proteins is their rapid, adaptive evolution. This phenomenon occurs in organisms diverse as diatoms and mammals. The research proposed here is aimed at identifying interacting male-female reproductive proteins and studying their co-evolution in three systems: Drosophila, abalone, and mammals. ? ? Specific Aim 1 is to identify cognate male-female pairs of reproductive proteins in Drosophila, where no interacting male-female reproductive proteins are known. This will greatly increase the use of Drosophila as a model organism for the study of reproductive proteins. ? ? Specific Aim 2 is to use abalone to test the functional consequences of diversity in reproductive proteins using a well-established interaction of sperm and egg molecules. This is not currently possible in other animal systems.
Specific Aim 3 uses the knowledge gained from the study of reproductive protein diversity in other systems to test for correlated changes in sperm-egg recognition molecules from a pool of proposed interacting mammalian sperm-egg molecules. The identification of interacting mammalian sperm-egg molecules is a long-standing controversy in mammalian fertilization. Our approach, a direct application of results and ideas from basic research, is a novel comparative genomics analysis aimed at testing the proposed interactions. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01HD042563-01A1
Application #
6617568
Study Section
Genetics Study Section (GEN)
Program Officer
Taymans, Susan
Project Start
2003-07-01
Project End
2008-06-30
Budget Start
2003-07-01
Budget End
2004-06-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$334,854
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Washington
Department
Genetics
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
605799469
City
Seattle
State
WA
Country
United States
Zip Code
98195
Claw, Katrina G; George, Renee D; MacCoss, Michael J et al. (2018) Quantitative evolutionary proteomics of seminal fluid from primates with different mating systems. BMC Genomics 19:488
Claw, Katrina G; George, Renee D; Swanson, Willie J (2014) Detecting coevolution in mammalian sperm-egg fusion proteins. Mol Reprod Dev 81:531-8
Aagaard, Jan E; Springer, Stevan A; Soelberg, Scott D et al. (2013) Duplicate abalone egg coat proteins bind sperm lysin similarly, but evolve oppositely, consistent with molecular mimicry at fertilization. PLoS Genet 9:e1003287
Palmer, Melody R; McDowall, Margo H; Stewart, Lia et al. (2013) Mass spectrometry and next-generation sequencing reveal an abundant and rapidly evolving abalone sperm protein. Mol Reprod Dev 80:460-5
Claw, Katrina G; Swanson, Willie J (2012) Evolution of the egg: new findings and challenges. Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet 13:109-25
Hellberg, Michael E; Dennis, Alice B; Arbour-Reily, Patricia et al. (2012) The Tegula tango: a coevolutionary dance of interacting, positively selected sperm and egg proteins. Evolution 66:1681-94
Vacquier, Victor D; Swanson, Willie J (2011) Selection in the rapid evolution of gamete recognition proteins in marine invertebrates. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 3:a002931
Springer, Stevan A; Crespi, Bernard J; Swanson, Willie J (2011) Beyond the phenotypic gambit: molecular behavioural ecology and the evolution of genetic architecture. Mol Ecol 20:2240-57
Swanson, Willie J; Aagaard, Jan E; Vacquier, Victor D et al. (2011) The molecular basis of sex: linking yeast to human. Mol Biol Evol 28:1963-6
Rohlfs, Rori V; Swanson, Willie J; Weir, Bruce S (2010) Detecting coevolution through allelic association between physically unlinked loci. Am J Hum Genet 86:674-85

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