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. 2019 May 22;19(1):107.
doi: 10.1186/s12862-019-1435-y.

Immunogenetic response of the bananaquit in the face of malarial parasites

Jennifer Antonides  1 , Samarth Mathur  2 , Mekala Sundaram  3 , Robert Ricklefs  4 , J Andrew DeWoody  3   2
Affiliations

Immunogenetic response of the bananaquit in the face of malarial parasites

Jennifer Antonides et al. BMC Evol Biol. .

Abstract

Background: In the arms race between hosts and parasites, genes involved in the immune response are targets for natural selection. Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) genes play a role in parasite detection as part of the innate immune system whereas Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes encode proteins that display antigens as part of the vertebrate adaptive immune system. Thus, both gene families are under selection pressure from pathogens. The bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) is a passerine bird that is a common host of avian malarial parasites (Plasmodium sp. and Haemoproteus sp.). We assessed molecular variation of TLR and MHC genes in a wild population of bananaquits and identified allelic associations with resistance/susceptibility to parasitic infection to address hypotheses of avian immune response to haemosporidian parasites.

Results: We found that allele frequencies are associated with infection status at the immune loci studied. A consistent general trend showed the infected groups possessed more alleles at lower frequencies, and exhibited unique alleles, compared to the uninfected group.

Conclusions: Our results support the theory of natural selection favoring particular alleles for resistance while maintaining overall genetic diversity in the population, a mechanism which has been demonstrated in some systems in MHC previously but understudied in TLRs.

Keywords: Avian malaria; Haemosporidian parasites; Major histocompatibility complex; Toll-like receptor.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Allele frequency differences at TLR loci between experimental groups. All group/locus correlation/association tests are overall significant at among groups based on Chi-square test and/or Fisher’s exact test. Alleles with significantly higher (green up-arrow) or lower (red down-arrow) frequencies based on the 95% confidence interval of the null distribution upon resampling. UNI Uninfected group, LA07 infected with LA07 strains, INF infected with various strains other than LA07. COMBO represents combined infected groups (the weighted average of LA07 and INF)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Allele frequency differences at MHC loci between experimental groups. All group/locus correlation/association tests are overall significant at among groups based on Chi-square test and/or Fisher’s exact test. Alleles with significantly higher (green up-arrow) or lower (red down-arrow) frequencies based on the 95% confidence interval of the null distribution upon resampling. UNI Uninfected group, LA07 infected with LA07 strains, INF infected with various strains other than LA07. COMBO represents combined infected groups (the weighted average of LA07 and INF)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Expected heterozygosity for each locus and group. Error bars are +/− one standard error from the mean. UNI Uninfected group, LA07 infected with LA07 strains, INF infected with various strains other than LA07. COMBO represents combined infected groups (the weighted average of LA07 and INF)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
(Left) Overview of experimental design for investigating immune alleles among birds of different infection statuses using pooled sequencing of target amplicons (Right) Schematic of Primer Design
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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