Origins of multicellular evolvability in snowflake yeast

William C. Ratcliff (), Johnathon D. Fankhauser, David W. Rogers, Duncan Greig and Michael Travisano
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William C. Ratcliff: School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology
Johnathon D. Fankhauser: Plant Biology, University of Minnesota
David W. Rogers: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
Duncan Greig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
Michael Travisano: Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Complex life has arisen through a series of ‘major transitions’ in which collectives of formerly autonomous individuals evolve into a single, integrated organism. A key step in this process is the origin of higher-level evolvability, but little is known about how higher-level entities originate and gain the capacity to evolve as an individual. Here we report a single mutation that not only creates a new level of biological organization, but also potentiates higher-level evolvability. Disrupting the transcription factor ACE2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae prevents mother–daughter cell separation, generating multicellular ‘snowflake’ yeast. Snowflake yeast develop through deterministic rules that produce geometrically defined clusters that preclude genetic conflict and display a high broad-sense heritability for multicellular traits; as a result they are preadapted to multicellular adaptation. This work demonstrates that simple microevolutionary changes can have profound macroevolutionary consequences, and suggests that the formation of clonally developing clusters may often be the first step to multicellularity.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7102

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