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Novel Seminal Fluid Proteins in the Seed Beetle Callosobruchus

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Novel Seminal Fluid Proteins in the Seed Beetle Callosobruchus Insect Molecular Biology (2017) 26(1), 58–73 doi: 10.1111/imb.12271 Novel seminal fluid proteins in the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus identified by a proteomic and transcriptomic approach H. Bayram, A. Sayadi, J. Goenaga*, E. Immonen and are SFPs. These results can inform further investiga- G. Arnqvist tion, to better understand the molecular mechanisms Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary of sexual conflict in seed beetles. Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Keywords: evolution, reproduction, coleoptera, seminal fluid. Abstract The seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus is a sig- Introduction nificant agricultural pest and increasingly studied Ejaculates are a complex mixture of sperm and seminal model of sexual conflict. Males possess genital fluid (Perry et al., 2013). Seminal fluid proteins (SFPs) are spines that increase the transfer of seminal fluid pro- being increasingly studied owing to their effects on fertility teins (SFPs) into the female body. As SFPs alter and female physiology (Poiani, 2006). SFPs improve male female behaviour and physiology, they are likely to fertility directly, maintaining sperm viability and motility (eg modulate reproduction and sexual conflict in this King et al., 2011; Simmons & Beveridge, 2011; Smith & species. Here, we identified SFPs using proteomics Stanfield, 2012). Furthermore, many SFPs influence combined with a de novo transcriptome. A prior 2D- female traits, such as egg production and remating rate sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electro- (Mane et al., 1983; Chapman, 2001) and are therefore likely phoresis analysis identified male accessory gland targets of selection via sexual conflict (Arnqvist & Rowe, protein spots that were probably transferred to the 2005; Sirot et al., 2014). Sperm competition (Parker, 1970), female at mating. Proteomic analysis of these spots the competition between sperm from different males to fer- identified 98 proteins, a majority of which were also tilize the same set of ova, is predicted to be a potent force present within ejaculates collected from females. driving both the evolution of SFPs (Dhole & Servedio, Standard annotation workflows revealed common 2014) and the plasticity of their expression (Fedorka et al., functional groups for SFPs, including proteases and 2011; Ramm et al., 2015). Indeed, there is now much evi- metabolic proteins. Transcriptomic analysis found 84 dence that SFPs are under positive Darwinian selection (eg transcripts differentially expressed between the Swanson et al., 2001; Haerty et al., 2007; Ramm et al., sexes. Notably, genes encoding 15 proteins were 2008; for a review of reproductive protein evolution see Wil- highly expressed in male abdomens and only negligi- burn & Swanson, 2015). bly expressed within females. Most of these sequen- The rapid evolution of SFPs can limit the techniques ces corresponded to ‘unknown’ proteins (nine of 15) available for investigation in species without a described and may represent rapidly evolving SFPs novel to genome. The nature of many proteomic workflows – seed beetles. Our combined analyses highlight 44 searching identified mass spectra against a database of proteins for which there is strong evidence that they predicted peptide sequences – requires a high level of First published online 24 October 2016. genomic information. For many proteins, cross species Correspondence: Helen Bayram, Department of Ecology and Genetics, matching may be sufficient for confident identifications Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvagen€ 18D, Uppsala (eg within mammalian sperm: Bayram et al., 2016). SE-752 36, Sweden. Tel.: 1 46 18 471 2674; e-mail: helen.bayram@ebc. uu.se However, the rapid evolution of SFPs results in unique *Present address: Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus Univer- or highly divergent sequences that may not be identified sity, Aarhus, Denmark. in this manner. Previous proteomic studies of SFPs have 58 VC 2016 The Royal Entomological Society Seminal fluid proteins in Callosobruchus maculatus 59 thus often been limited to model species with extensive sequences are highly expressed in males and only negli- genomic information available [such as Drosophila mela- gibly present within females. Over half of these 15 nogaster (Findlay et al., 2008), Mus musculus (Dean sequences have no homology to annotated proteins. et al., 2011) and humans (Pilch & Mann, 2006)] or dedi- These are likely to be novel SFPs, possibly unique to cated genome projects [eg Apis mellifera (Baer et al., seed beetles, worthy of further investigation. 2009) and Aedes aegypti (Sirot et al., 2011)]. An alterna- tive approach, using a de novo transcriptome to provide Results and discussion predicted protein sequences for protein identifications Protein identification (Evans et al., 2012), allows a proteomic approach to be used to study the SFPs of species that lack a sequenced A previous analysis used 2D sodium dodecyl sulphate genome, but do have biologically interesting SFPs. Previ- polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) of male ously, this principle has been successfully applied using accessory gland proteins, which were compared with gel expressed sequence tag and 454 sequencing approaches spot profiles of mated and virgin females, to identify 127 to identify transcripts for proteomic identification of SFPs spots that were transferred to the female at mating within crickets (Andres et al., 2008; Marshall et al., 2009; (Goenaga et al., 2015). Here, we chose 55 of those Simmons et al., 2013), butterflies (Walters & Harrison, spots for protein identification. Out of these 55 spots, 2010) and abalone (Palmer et al., 2013). As technological 34 were selected because they showed a strong advances continue to make the production of high-quality interpopulation-level correlation with traits relating to transcriptomic information faster and more affordable, reproductive success (Goenaga et al., 2015). The proteomic methods for nonmodel organisms, relying on remaining 21 represented clear spots that were consis- sequencing information from de novo transcriptomes, tently found within all 15 populations tested (Fig. 1). should become increasingly useful. Commonly, protein identifications are based upon pre- The seed beetle (Callosobrucus maculatus) is a wide- dicted protein sequences taken from genomic informa- spread and economically very important agricultural pest tion. Here, a recent and integrative de novo and an emerging model organism in evolutionary biology. transcriptome for C. maculatus (Sayadi et al., 2016) was Males of this species have a suite of adaptations that used to allow protein identification (Evans et al., 2012). improve their fertilization success during reproductive Searching against the de novo transcriptome following competition, such as sclerotized genital spines (Hotzy & matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight Arnqvist, 2009; Hotzy et al., 2012). These spines (MALDI-TOF) analyses gave significant protein hits, increase the passage of seminal fluid substances into the based on at least two unique peptides, for 23 of the 55 body of mated females (Hotzy et al., 2012), suggesting gel spot extractions. The results of the MALDI-TOF anal- an important role for the proteins within the seminal fluid ysis for the remaining 32 gel spots were deemed incon- of this species. Indeed, injecting females directly with clusive, as they either contained multiple proteins, which SFPs alters female receptivity and male success in is common for 2D SDS-PAGE analysis (Campostrini et al., sperm competition (Yamane et al., 2008, 2015). 2005), or contained a low protein concentration. These 32 A recent study by Goenaga et al.(2015)useda2D spots were then analysed with higher resolution using liq- gel-based approach to identify 127 gel spots containing uid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC- proteins that are both present in the male accessory MSMS), a more sensitive method that also allows the glands and are transferred to the female at mating. Fur- identification of multiple proteins from the same spot. After thermore, comparisons of the accessory gland protein LC-MSMS analysis, at least one protein sequence was profile of 15 distinct populations revealed striking intraspe- identified with significant confidence, based on a minimum cific variation and functional assays showed that relative of two unique peptide hits, in extractions from 30 out of the protein abundance within several of these spots corre- 32 gel spots. The two remaining gel spots gave no signifi- lated with postmating reproductive phenotypes (such as cant protein sequence hits. male success in sperm competition and male ability to As protein identifications were based on an in-house stimulate female egg laying). Here, we built upon this pre- transcriptome (Sayadi et al., 2016) the open reading vious study; combining proteomic and transcriptomic frame of each transcript hit was predicted using TRANS- analyses allowed us to identify SFPs from 55 of these DECODER (http://transdecoder.github.io/; Haas et al., transferred spots. We found 98 sequences in total, 85 of 2013) and checked manually before confirming the iden- which have significant homology to known, annotated pro- tified protein sequence. Following this confirmation, a teins. Comparisons between the sequences identified total of 98 protein sequences was identified with confi- here and SFPs already characterized within insects show dence from the 55 gel spots analysed (Table 1). Identify- 21 of the sequences to be homologous. Analysis
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