Coevolution of the olfactory organ and its receptor repertoire in ray-finned fishes

• DOI: 10.1186/s12915-022-01397-x
• Publication Date: 2022-09-01T20:02:39Z
• Authors: Maxime Policarpo; Katherine E. Bemis; Patrick Laurenti; Laurent Legendre; Jean-Christophe S...; Sylvie Rétaux; Didier Casane
• Keywords: Coevolution

Ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) perceive their environment through a range of sensory modalities, including olfaction. Anatomical diversity the olfactory organ suggests that olfaction is differentially important among species. To explore this topic, we studied evolutionary dynamics four main gene families (OR, TAAR, ORA/VR1 and OlfC/VR2) coding for receptors in 185 species ray-finned fishes. The large variation number functional genes, between 28 ocean sunfish Mola mola 1317 reedfish Erpetoichthys calabaricus, result parallel expansions contractions families. Several ancient independent simplifications are associated with massive losses. In contrast, Polypteriformes, which have unique complex organ, almost twice as many receptor genes any other fish. We document link morphology richness repertoire. Further, our results demonstrate genomic underpinning heterogeneous presents dynamic pattern expansions, simplifications, reacquisitions.