Mutation Accumulation in Chromosomal Inversions Maintains Wing Pattern Polymorphism in a Butterfly
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bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/736504; this version posted August 15, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Mutation accumulation in chromosomal inversions maintains wing pattern polymorphism in a butterfly Paul Jay1 *, Mathieu Chouteau1,2 *, Annabel Whibley3, Héloïse Bastide4, Violaine Llaurens4, Hugues Parrinello5, and Mathieu Joron1 1CEFE, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul Valery, Montpellier 3, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France 2LEEISA, USR 63456, Université De Guyane, CNRS Guyane, IFREMER Guyane, 275 route de Montabo, 797334 Cayenne, French Guiana 3School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand 4ISYEB, UMR7205 CNRS-MNHN-9UPMC-EPHE, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, CP 50,45 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, 10France. 5MGX, Biocampus Montpellier, CNRS, INSERM, Université Montpellier, Montpellier, France *These authors contributed equally. While natural selection favours the fittest genotype, polymor- The Amazonian butterfly Heliconius numata displays wing phisms are maintained over evolutionary timescales in numer- pattern polymorphism with up to seven morphs coexisting ous species. Why these long-lived polymorphisms are often as- within a single locality, each one engaged in warning color sociated with chromosomal rearrangements remains obscure. mimicry with distinct groups of toxic species. Adult morphs Combining genome assemblies, population genomic analyses, vary in mimicry protection against predators and in mating and fitness assays, we studied the factors maintaining multiple success via disassortative mate preferences (13, 16). Poly- mimetic morphs in the butterfly Heliconius numata. We show morphic inversions at the mimicry locus on chromosome that the polymorphism is maintained because three chromoso- mal inversions controlling wing patterns express a recessive mu- 15 (supergene P) form three distinct haplotypes (5). The tational load, which prevents their fixation despite their ecolog- standard, ancestral haplotype constitutes the class of reces- ical advantage. Since inversions suppress recombination and sive P alleles and is found, for example, in the widespread hamper genetic purging, their formation fostered the capture morph silvana. Two classes of derived haplotypes are known, and accumulation of deleterious variants. This suggests that both associated with a chromosomal inversion called P1 many complex polymorphisms, instead of representing adap- (∼400kb, 21 genes), each conferring increased protection tations to the existence of alternative ecological optima, could against predatory attacks via mimicry. The first derived hap- be maintained primarily because chromosomal rearrangements lotype, encoding the morph bicoloratus, carries P1 alone; the are prone to carrying recessive harmful mutations. second class of derived haplotypes carries P1 linked with ad- Heliconius | Polymorphism | Supergene | Degeneration | Inversion | Load ditional yet still uncharacterized rearrangements (called BP2 Correspondence: [email protected], [email protected], math- in (5)) and occurs in morphs which typically exhibit interme- [email protected] diate levels of dominance, such as tarapotensis and arcuella. Polymorphic complex traits, which implicate the coordina- Inversion polymorphism and supergene formation originated tion of multiple elements of phenotype, are often controlled via the introgression of P1 from the H. pardalinus lineage by special genetic architectures involving chromosomal rear- (17). The series of chromosomal rearrangements initiated by rangements. Examples include dimorphic social organization introgression allows us to unravel the stepwise process by in several ant species (1), coloration and behavioral polymor- which structural variation has become associated with direc- phisms in many birds and butterflies (2–6), dimorphic flower tional and balancing selection. morphology in plants (7), as well as the extreme cases pro- vided by sexual dimorphism encoded by the extensively re- Comparative analysis of de novo genome assemblies of 12 arranged sex chromosomes. Why these polymorphisms arise H. numata individuals revealed a history of supergene for- is a long-standing question in biology (8–12). mation characterized by the sequential accretion of three ad- The so-called supergenes controlling these striking polymor- jacent inversions with breakpoint reuse. Pairwise alignment phisms are characterized by the suppression of recombination of assemblies shows that all derived haplotypes belonging to between linked loci, often through polymorphic chromoso- the intermediate dominant allelic class display two newly- mal rearrangements which are thought to preserve alternative described inversions: P2 (200kb, 15 genes), adjacent to P1, combinations of co-adapted alleles (1,4,5, 7, 12). The en- and the longer P3 (1150 kb, 71 genes), adjacent to P2 (Fig coded phenotypes are often assumed to reflect the existence 1A, Sup. Fig. S1, Sup. Fig. S2). Sliding-window PCA of multiple, distinct adaptive optima, and are frequently as- along the supergene region confirmed the dominance of de- sociated with antagonistic ecological factors such as differ- rived arrangements (denoted Hn1 and Hn123) to the ances- ential survival or mating success (3, 13–15). Yet why and tral arrangement (denoted Hn0) and their prevalence across how alternative chromosomal forms become associated with all populations of the Amazon (Fig 1B, Fig 1C, Sup. Fig. S3, complex life-history variation and ecological trade-offs is not Sup. Fig. S4). Multiple genes in the inverted regions showed understood. significant differential expression compared to ancestral seg- Jay & Chouteau et al. | bioRχiv | August 15, 2019 | 1–8 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/736504; this version posted August 15, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Fig. 1. Genomic architecture of the H. numata wing pattern polymorphism A. Alignment of the genome assemblies from 4 H. numata morphs across the supergene region on chromosome 15. B. Sliding window Principal Component Analysis (PCA) computed along the supergene (non-overlapping 5kb windows). For clarity, only a subset of morphs are shown here (full dataset presented in Sup. Fig. S3). Each colored line represents the variation in the position of a specimen on the first PCA axis along chromosome 15 . Within the inversions, individual genomes are characterized by one of three genotypes : homozygous for the inversion (down), heterozygous (middle), homozygous for the standard arrangement (top). The gene annotation track is shown under the plot, with the forward strand in the lower panel and the reverse strand in the upper panel. Each gene is represented by a different colour C. Structure of the H. numata supergene P. Three chromosome types are found in H. numata populations, carrying the ancestral gene order (Hn0), inversion P1 (Hn1), or inversions P1,P2 and P3 (Hn123). D. Analysis of divergence times between Hn123 and Hn0 at inversions segment. The TMRCA between Hn123 and Hn0 and the most ancient common ancestor of Hn123 provide respectively the upper and lower bound of the inversions formation time. Boxplots display the distribution of estimated times computed on 5kb sliding window across the supergene (estimates plotted along the supergene presented in Sup. Fig. S7).Time intervals are consistent with the stepwise accretion of P1,P2 and P3, but the simultaneous origin of P2 and P3 cannot be formally rejected. ments, but this likely reflects divergence rather than direct Since chromosomal regions carrying inversions rarely form breakpoint effects (Sup. Fig. S5). Indeed, none of the break- chiasma during meiosis, recombination is strongly reduced points of P1,P2 or P3 fell within a gene, and no transcript among haplotypes with opposite orientations (18). Recombi- found in Hn0 specimens was missing, disrupted, or differen- nation suppression between structural alleles is predicted to tially spliced in specimens with inversions (Hn1 and Hn123). lead to inefficient purging of deleterious variants and there- fore to the accumulation of deleterious mutations and trans- In contrast to the introgressive origin of P1(Sup Fig. S6, posable elements (TEs) (19). Consistent with this predic- (17)), inversions P2 and P3 are younger and originated within the H. numata lineage. Upper and lower estimates of in- tion, estimation of the TE dynamics obtained by comput- version ages, obtained by determining the most recent co- ing whole genome TE divergence supports a recent burst alescence events between Hn0+Hn1 and Hn123, and within of TE insertion within the inversions, reported particularly Hn123, respectively, suggest that the P supergene has evolved by TEs belonging to the RC, DNA and LINE classes (Fig. 2A, Fig. 2B). Inverted haplotypes show a significant size in- in three steps, involving the introgression of P1followed by crease (mean=+9.47%) compared to their corresponding non- the successive occurrence of P2 and P3 between ca. 1.8 and 3.0 Mya (Fig. 1D, Sup. Fig. S7). Haplotypes show size- inverted region in Hn0 (Fig. 2C) and this expansion was able peaks of differentiation