Proceedings: Biological Sciences ISSN: 0962-8452 (Paper) 1471-2954 (Online) Issue: Volume 272, Number 1575 / September 22, 2005 Pages: 1935 - 1940 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2005.3151 URL: Linking Options Sex as a response to oxidative stress: stress genes co-opted for sex Aurora M. Nedelcu A1 A1 University of New Brunswick Department of Biology Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada E3B 6E1 Abstract: Despite a great deal of interest, the evolutionary origins and roles of sex remain unclear. Recently, we showed that in the multicellular green alga, Volvox carteri, sex is a response to increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which could be indicative of the ancestral role of sex as an adaptive response to stress-induced ROS. To provide additional support for the suggestion that sex evolved as a response to oxidative stress, this study addresses the hypothesis that genes involved in sexual induction are evolutionarily related to genes associated with various stress responses. In particular, this study investigates the evolutionary history of genes specific to the sexual induction process in V. carteri—including those encoding the sexual inducer (SI) and several SI-induced extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. Surprisingly, (i) a highly diversified multigene family with similarity to the V. carteri SI and SI-induced pherophorin family is present in its unicellular relative, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (which lacks both a SI and an ECM) and (ii) at least half of the 12 identified gene members are induced (as inferred from reported expressed sequence tags) under various stress conditions. These findings suggest an evolutionary connection between sex and stress at the gene level, via duplication and/or co-option. Keywords: sex, oxidative stress, co-option, gene duplication, pherophorins, Volvox carteri, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Electronic Supplementary Material Electronic Appendix PDF(600 KB)    Please Note Clicking supplemental item names will open the file immediately, if the format is known by your browser. To save a file to your computer, simply right click the link and select "Save Target As..." or "Save Link As..." References: Amon, P., Haas, E. & Sumper, M. 1998 The sex-inducing pheromone and wounding trigger the same set of genes in the multicellular green alga Volvox. Plant Cell10, 781–789. Plant Cell The sex-inducing pheromone and wounding trigger the same set of genes in the multicellular green alga Volvox 781 789 Emanuelsson, O., Nielsen, H., Brunak, S. & von Heijne, G. 2000 Predicting subcellular localization of proteins based on their N-terminal amino acid sequence. J. Mol. Biol.300, 1005–1016. J. Mol. Biol. 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