The National Institute for Basic Biology and the research group at Chubu University have succeeded in decoding the genome of "Heike firefly".In collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the genome of the American firefly "Fotinus Pilaris" was also decoded.A comparison of the two reveals that fireflies acquired the ability to shine more than 1 million years ago.
Firefly luminescence is produced by the reaction of an enzyme called luciferase with a substrate called luciferin.Luminescence technology using this mechanism is widely used in the biotechnology and medical fields, but it was unclear when and how fireflies acquired and evolved the luminous function.
This time, the US-Japan joint team has deciphered the genomes of Luciola lateralis and Fotinus pyraris, which have a common ancestor.The Heike firefly genome is composed of 9 million base pairs and the Fotinus genome is composed of 4 million base pairs, and about 7 genes have been identified in each.
As a result of the analysis, the origin of the luciferase gene is the gene of the fatty acid-metabolizing enzyme called "acyl-CoA synthase" that is universally possessed by organisms, and this gene causes "gene duplication" to be continuously copied on the genome one after another. It was found that one of them evolved into luciferase with luminescent activity by mutation.In addition, luciferase has undergone another gene duplication, one evolving to emit light in adult fireflies and the other in eggs and pupae.Both fireflies diverged from their common ancestor 1 million years ago (Cretaceous), but these gene duplications occurred earlier.
In the future, analysis of genes that support luminescence other than the luciferase gene will be an issue.Data such as the genomic information decoded this time will be an important basis for this, and it is expected that the analysis of these genes will proceed at an accelerating pace.
Paper information:[ELife] Firefly genomes illuminate parallel origins of bioluminescence in beetles
