Transcriptional frontloading contributes to cross‐tolerance between stressors

Bibliographic Details
Title: Transcriptional frontloading contributes to cross‐tolerance between stressors
Authors: Michael Collins, Melody S. Clark, John I. Spicer, Manuela Truebano
Source: Evolutionary Applications, Vol 14, Iss 2, Pp 577-587 (2021)
Publisher Information: Wiley, 2021.
Publication Year: 2021
Collection: LCC:Evolution
Subject Terms: cross‐tolerance, environmental change, frontloading, multistressor, plasticity, Evolution, QH359-425
More Details: Abstract The adaptive value of phenotypic plasticity for performance under single stressors is well documented. However, plasticity may only truly be adaptive in the natural multifactorial environment if it confers resilience to stressors of a different nature, a phenomenon known as cross‐tolerance. An understanding of the mechanistic basis of cross‐tolerance is essential to aid prediction of species resilience to future environmental change. Here, we identified mechanisms underpinning cross‐tolerance between two stressors predicted to increasingly challenge aquatic ecosystems under climate change, chronic warming and hypoxia, in an ecologically‐important aquatic invertebrate. Warm acclimation improved hypoxic performance through an adaptive hypometabolic strategy and changes in the expression of hundreds of genes that are important in the response to hypoxia. These ‘frontloaded’ genes showed a reduced reaction to hypoxia in the warm acclimated compared to the cold acclimated group. Frontloaded genes included stress indicators, immune response and protein synthesis genes that are protective at the cellular level. We conclude that increased constitutive gene expression as a result of warm acclimation reduced the requirement for inducible stress responses to hypoxia. We propose that transcriptional frontloading contributes to cross‐tolerance between stressors and may promote fitness of organisms in environments increasingly challenged by multiple anthropogenic threats.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1752-4571
Relation: https://doaj.org/toc/1752-4571
DOI: 10.1111/eva.13142
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/0894991a557146bab97622830d0fce62
Accession Number: edsdoj.0894991a557146bab97622830d0fce62
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:17524571
DOI:10.1111/eva.13142
Published in:Evolutionary Applications
Language:English