Genesis of Ecto-symbiotic features based on Commensalistic Syntrophy

• Published in: bioRxiv
• Main Authors: Krishnan, Nandakishor, Csiszár, Villo, Móri, Tamás, Garay, József
• Format: Paper
• Language: English
• Published: Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 05.09.2022; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
• Edition: 1.1
• Subjects: Commensalism; Eukaryotes; Evolution; Evolutionary Biology; Genomes; Phenotypes; Syntrophism; Syntrophy; Commensalism; Coexistence; Evolutionary substitution; Ecto-symbiosis
• ISSN: 2692-8205; 2692-8205
• DOI: 10.1101/2022.09.04.506536

The origin of eukaryotes and organellogenesis have been recognized as a major evolutionary transition and subject to in-depth studies. Acknowledging the fact that the initial interactions and conditions of cooperative behaviour between free-living single-celled organisms are widely debated, we narrow our scope to a single mechanism that could possibly have set-off multi-species associations. We hypothesize that the very first step in the evolution of such cooperative behaviour could be a single mutation in an ancestral symbiont genome that results in the formation of an ecto-commensalism with its obligate ancestral host. We investigate the ecological and evolutionary stability of inter-species microbial interactions with vertical transmissions as an association based on syntrophy (cross-feeding). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a commensalistic model based on the syntrophy hypothesis is considered in the framework of coevolutionary dynamics and invadability by mutant phenotype into a monomorphic resident system. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.