Introduction

Nematode-trapping fungi, a monophyletic group belonging to the order Orbiliales in Ascomycota, have evolved sophisticated hyphal structures (traps) such as adhesive networks (AN), adhesive knobs (AK) or adhesive columns (AC), nonconstricting rings (NCR) and constricting rings (CR) to capture nematodes1,2,3. This group of fungi has been proposed as potential biological control agents for controlling harmful plant-parasitic nematodes4,5,6,7,8. Also, many opportunistic pathogenic fungi can live both as a saprophyte and parasite to adapt to various ecosystems. The ability to switch between saprophytic and parasitic lifestyle is thus one of the most fundamental life strategies for fungi and also a key point for understanding their pathogenicity8. However, for most opportunistic pathogenic fungi, it is difficult to define their key time points of lifestyle-switching, which complicates understanding the pathogenesis mechanism9,10. Therefore, nematode-trapping fungi are considered a good model for understanding the pathogenesis mechanisms of fungi because trap formation is considered a key indicator for nematode-trapping fungi switching their lifestyles from saprophytic to predacious11.

Large morphologic variations have been observed among the trapping structures produced by nematode-trapping fungi8. Adhesive networks (AN) consists of complex three-dimensional nets, while adhesive columns (AC) is an erect branch. Adhesive knobs (AK) can be divided into stalked knobs and sessile knobs: stalked knobs are morphologically distinct globose structures which often are produced on the apex of a slender hyphal stalk, while sessile knobs are sessile on the hypha3,7. A layer of adhesive polymers is accumulated outside the cell wall of AN, AC and AK. These adhesive polymers are thought to be important materials which allow the fungi to adhere to the nematode cuticle12,13. Constricting rings (CR) is a ring formed by three cells. When a nematode enters into this trap, the three ring cells are triggered to swell rapidly and close around the nematode14,15,16. Therefore, the CR-forming species capture nematodes via mechanical forces16. These distinct trapping devices represent remarkable adaptations during fungal evolution8.

Previously, nematode-trapping fungi were classified into a number of genera based on the morphology of conidia and conidiophores but without consideration of trapping devices17,18. However, with the development of molecular methods, many studies suggested that trapping structures are more informative in generic delimitation among these fungi2,19,20,21. Accordingly, nematode-trapping fungi have been classified into three genera: Arthrobotrys is characterized by AN, Dactylellina by AK and/or NCR, and Drechslerella by CR22. It is noteworthy that those species which show similar morphology to nematode-trapping fungi but do not produce trap devices have been classified into genus Dactylella and are considered to be the ancestral species of nematode-trapping fungi23,24.

Trapping devices are significant for the survival of nematode-trapping fungi. At present, various hypotheses on the evolution of trapping devices have been proposed based on the phylogenetic analyses of several housekeeping genes25,26,27. Based on the phylogenetic analyses of 28S rDNA, 5.8S rDNA and β-tubulin genes, Li et al.25 proposed that AK is the ancestral type of trapping device which then evolved along two pathways: one way retained the adhesive material to form simple two-dimensional networks (AC), eventually forming complex three-dimension networks (AN); the other way lost the adhesive materials to form CR with three inflatable cells25. In addition, based on several molecular markers, such as RNA polymerase II subunit gene rpb2, elongation factor 1-α gene ef1-α, ß tubulin gene bt and the internal transcribed spacer region ITS, Yang et al. 200826 suggested that trapping structures evolved along two lineages, yielding two distinct trapping mechanisms: one developed into CR and the other developed into adhesive traps. Among adhesive trapping devices, AN evolved from the others early and AK evolved through stalk elongation, with a final development of NCR26,27. Although conflicts exist between these evolutionary hypotheses, both of them hold that adhesive materials played important roles during the evolution of trapping devices. Thus, phylogenetic analyses of genes coding for adhesive proteins could improve understanding the evolution of trap devices.

Adhesive materials, the major components of the extracellular fibrillar polymers which are present on the outer surface of adhesive traps, are thought to enable the mycelia to adhere to nematodes and also serve as important constituents of the extracellular matrix that harbors many secreted virulence-related proteins13,28. To date, little is known about the exact components of adhesive materials located on the traps in nematode-trapping fungi. Recently, one cell wall protein MAD1 was characterized from the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae29. The disruption of Mad1 in M. anisopliae delayed germination, suppressed blastospore formation, and greatly reduced virulence to caterpillars29. Moreover, one homolog of Mad1, AoMad1, has been identified and functionally studied in the nematode-trapping fungus A. oligospora. Transmission electron microscopic (TEM) investigation found that almost all the surface polymers were absent from the ΔAoMad1 cell wall, suggesting that AoMad1 is involved in the production of adhesive proteins in nematode-trapping fungi30.

At present, three whole genomes of the AN-forming species A. oligospora, the AK and NCR-forming species Dactylellina haptotyla (also known as Monacrosporium haptotylum) and the CR-forming species Drechslerella stenobrocha) have been sequenced11,31,32, which provides a good opportunity to design degenerate primers to clone Mad1 homologs from different nematode-trapping fungi. In this study, we cloned Mad1 homologs from nematode-trapping fungi with various trapping devices and the species belonging to genus Dactylella . We hypothesize that Mad1 encoding genes may play important roles during the evolution of trap devices in nematode-trapping species. To accomplish this, phylogenetic analyses based on 47 Mad1 homologs were performed in this study including 44 genes newly cloned in this study and three genes from the three whole genome sequenced fungi. Also, the possible selection pressures responsible for Mad1 genes in nematode-trapping species were investigated. Our study provides new insights into the evolution of trap devices based on the genes related to adhesive materials.

Materials and Methods

Microorganisms and DNA extraction

The 45 fungal strains used in this study (Table 1) are permanently stored in the Yunnan Microbiological Fermentation Culture Collection Center (YMF). Fungi were cultured on PDA medium at 28 °C for 8–15 day. Their mycelia were scraped off from the plate then collected and genomic DNA was isolated from about 200mg mycelia using the E.Z.N.A.@ Fungal DNA Mini kits (Omega Bio-Tek, Inc. USA) following the manufacturer’s protocol.

Table 1 GenBank accession numbers for sequences used in the phylogenetic analysis.
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Primer design and cloning of Mad1 homologs

Degenerate primers (Mad1F: 5′-TACAGTG(C/T)GGTGGAGCCAAGAG-3′ and Mad1R:5′-CTT(G/A)ACTGGGCAGACGGTGAC-3′) were designed using DNAman software package (Version 5.2.2, Lynnon Biosoft, Canada) based on the homologs of Mad1 from the three whole genome sequenced nematode-trapping fungi (GenBank numbers XM_011114756 in D. haptotyla, XM_011123119 in A. oligospora, and KI966443 in D. stenobrocha) and used to amplify the gene fragments of Mad1 homologs from those species employed in this study. The PCR reaction mixture consisted of 0.5 μL Taq DNA polymerase, 5 μL of reaction mixture buffer, 3 μL of 25 mM MgCl2, 1 μL of 2.5 mM dNTPs, 1 μL of 100 μM degenerate primers, and 0.5–1.0 μg quantified DNA template in a final volume of 50 μL supplied with double-distilled sterile water. Amplification started at 95 °C for 5 min, followed by 35 cycles with 95 °C for 40 s, 51 °C for 40 s, and 72 °C for 1.5 min. After the last cycle, the reaction mixture was maintained at 72 °C for 10 min for a final extension step. The universal primers (ITS4: 5′-TCCTCCGCTTATTGATATGC-3′ and ITS5:5′-GGAAGTAAAAGTCGTAACAAGG-3′) were also used to clone the ITS sequences from the fungi species in this study for genotyping purposes33.

Sequencing and analysis

Amplified PCR products were electrophoresed on 1% agarose gels and purified using the DNA fragment purification kit version 2.0 (Takara, Japan) and then sequenced on an ABI 3730 automated sequencer in both directions using the same PCR primers (Perkin-Elmer, USA). Sequence assembly was performed using the SeqMan software (DNA Star software package, DNASTAR, Inc. USA) and DNAman software package (Version 5.2.2, Lynnon Biosoft, Canada). Conserved protein domains of Mad1 were identified using InterProScan (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/pfa/iprscan/) with default parameter settings34.

Phylogenetic analysis

Codon-based nucleotide alignment was generated by using MUSCLE v3.5 with default settings35. The ambiguous areas of alignment were removed by using the program Gblocks 0.91b with default parameters with the exception that the gap selection criterion “with half” was used22,36. An alignment consisting of 1272-bp alignment (corresponding to 440 amino acids) was obtained (Supplementary Fig. S1). ITS sequences of the nematode-trapping fungi were also aligned by MUSCLE v3.535 and the ambiguous areas were also removed by Gblocks 0.91b with default parameters22,36. Finally, a total of 502-bp alignment was obtained.

Three tree-building methods were performed for phylogenetic reconstructions of Mad1 genes. The program MEGA 637 was used to construct a neighbor joining (NJ) tree, and MrBayes 3.1.238 was used to perform Bayesian analysis. The Maximum Likelihood (ML) analysis was performed using PHYML 3.039. In the NJ analysis, pairwise deletion option for gaps was used. In the ML analysis, the model GTR+I+G of sequence evolution was chosen by using Akaike information criterion as implemented in Modeltest version 3.740. The reliability of these tree topologies was evaluated using bootstrap support41 with 1000 replicates for NJ and 100 for ML analysis. The parameters estimated by Modeltest were also used in the priors of Bayesian inference with MrBayes version 3.1.238. Bayesian analysis started with randomly generated trees and Metropolis-coupled Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analyses were run for 2 × 106 generations. The run was stopped when the average standard deviation of split frequencies was less than 0.01 in all cases (MrBayes 3.1.2 manual). To ensure that these analyses were not trapped in local optima, the dataset was run three times independently. Bayesian posterior probabilities (PP) from the 50% majority-rule consensus tree were calculated to provide the estimates of nodal support in Bayesian phylogenies. For the ITS sequences of the nematode-trapping fungi in this study, only ML tree was produced using PHYML 3.038. The best-fitting model GTR+I+G estimated by program Modeltest version 3.739 was used in the ML analysis. The reliability of the tree topology was evaluated using bootstrap support40 with 100 replications.

Selective pressures analyses

The ratio ω (dN/dS) is the ratio of the number of non-synonymous substitutions per non-synonymous site (dN) to the number of synonymous substitutions per synonymous site (dS), which provides an indication of the change in selective pressures42. dN/dS ratios of 1, <1, and >1 are indicative of neutral evolution, purifying selection, and positive selection on the protein involved, respectively43,44. To investigate the possible selective forces behind Mad1 homologs in nematode-trapping fungi with various trapping structures, the codon substitution models implemented in the CODEML program in the PAML 4.4b package45 were used to analyze changes of selective pressure. Given that the likelihood may be sensitive to the tree topology used, inconsistent nodes from different tree-building methods and with poor statistical support were collapsed into a polytomy46. The collapsed tree (Fig. 1) was then used to conduct the analysis to determine the signatures of positive selection. Two branch-specific models were compared, i.e., the “one-ratio” (M0) model which assumes the same ω ratio for all branches was compared with the “free-ratios” model which assumes an independent ω ratio for each branch47. Secondly, site-specific models M1a, M2a, M7, and M8, which allow for variable selection patterns among amino acid sites, were used to test for the presence of sites under positive selection. M2a and M8 models allow for positively selected sites. When these two positive-selection models fitted the data significantly better than the corresponding null models (M1a and M8a), the presence of sites with ω > 1 was suggested. The conservative Empirical Bayes approach was then used to calculate the posterior probabilities of a specific codon site and identify those most likely to be under positive selection48. The “branch-site” model, which accommodates ω ratios to vary both among lineages of interest and amino acid sites, was also considered here49. We used branch-site Model A as a stringency test (test 2) and identified amino acid sites under positive selection by an empirical Bayes approach along the lineages of interest49,50. The log-likelihoods for the null and alternative models were used to calculate a likelihood ratio test (LRT) statistic, which was then compared against the χ2 distribution (with a critical value of 3.84 at a 5% significance level)45. In addition, the Bonferroni correction51,52 was also applied for multiple testing in the analysis according to the number of tests of significance performed.

Figure 1: Phylogenetic tree of Mad1 genes used for codon-based maximum likelihood analysis in PAML.
figure 1

Phylogenetic trees with inconsistent nodes from different tree-building methods and poor statistical (BS value < 70) support were collapsed into polytomy. Branch-site model tests were performed for the ancestral branches (a–i) of each type of trap structure. The branches with significant evidence of positive selection are indicated with a thick line. The putative positively selected residues along different branches are shaded with different colors.

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Results

Mad1 homologs from nematode-trapping fungi

Using the degenerate primers Mad1F and Mad1R to amplify the 3′ terminal fragments which contain the functional domains of Mad1 homologs, 39 gene fragments ranging from 1193-bp to 1826-bp in length were amplified from their corresponding nematode-trapping fungi and 5 fragments were obtained from 5 Dactylella species (Table 1, GenBank nos: KT932011-KT932054). homologsA total of 47 fragments were used for subsequent analyses (Table 1). In addition, 34 ITS fragments of the corresponding 34 strains were amplified in our study (Table 1, GenBank nos: KT932055-KT932088) and 10 ITS sequences were downloaded from the NCBI database (Table 1). Finally, in total of 44 ITS fragments were used for phylogenetic analyses with the exception of those ITS sequences from the three strains: Arthrobotrys rutgeriense, Arthrobotrys sp. 1 and Dactylellina ellipsospora 1 were not obtained in our study.

Functional domain analyses suggested that the Mad1 homologs in nematode-trapping fungi (Fig. 2) contain several domains similar to those in M. anisopliae. Intriguingly, independent alignment of translated amino acids shows that there are significant differences among the sequences of different trapping devices. As seen in Fig. 2, the Mad1 homologs derived from those species forming adhesive traps are much more conserved than those genes from the mechanical CR-forming species. The most highly conserved Mad1 genes from the AN-forming species contain a Threonine-rich (Thr-rich) domain composed of eight repeats of “EAPCTEYSCTA” and two Proline-rich (Pro-rich) domains (indicated by pound signs in Fig. 2) located at the two sides of a CFEM domain (indicated by asterisks in Fig. 2). Also, a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchoring signal peptide was identified at their C-terminal ends (indicated by black triangle in Fig. 2). The Mad1 genes cloned from those species which can form AK and NCR (Fig. 2C) are also composed of four functional domains: the Thr-rich domain consisting of eight repeats of “V/PCTD/EYCTAG”, the two Pro-rich domains at the two sides of the CFEM domain and the conserved GPI site, showing similar structures to those of genes from AN-forming species. The genes from the AK-forming species (Fig. 2D) are highly similar to the genes of AN and AK and NCR forming species with the exception that the repeated sequences are “TSVCTDYTCTA” and only seven repeats are found. Moreover, the genes from the AC-forming species show less conservation than other adhesive trap-forming species. There are many amino acid mutations at the repeat domains and only one Pro-rich domain is found on the right of the CEFM domain (Fig. 2E). Interestingly, for the genes from the CR-forming species and Dactylella species, no repeated sequences can be found at the N-terminal and only the CFEM domain and the GPI site are conserved. Moreover, at the right side of the CFEM domain, fewer fragments of the Pro-rich domain are found (Fig. 2B,F).

Figure 2: Protein alignment of Mad1 genes in nematode-trapping fungi.
figure 2

(A) alignment of Mad1 genes from representative AN-forming species. (B) alignment of Mad1 genes from representative CR-forming species. (C) alignment of Mad1 genes from representative AK and NCR-forming species. (D), alignment of Mad1 genes from representative AK-forming species. (E) alignment of Mad1 genes from representative AC-forming species. (F) alignment of Mad1 genes from Dactylella species. Areas shaded in red are conserved regions (100% similarity). Areas shaded in pink have a high degree of homology (more than 75% similarity). *indicates the CFEM domain, #indicates Pro-rich domain, ▲ indicates the GPI site.

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Phylogenetic analyses

In our study, an alignment consisting of 1272 bp (corresponding to 424 amino acids) was obtained and used for subsequent analyses (Supplementary Fig. S1).

Phylogenetic analyses based on the fragments of Mad1 homologs consistently revealed similar topologies with high bootstrap value or posterior probabilities (PP) (Fig. 3). Cladograms revealed that the species which form similar trapping structures were clustered into the same group/subgroup, implying distinctive signatures of different trapping devices. In our analysis, the species (pink color in Fig. 3) with nonadhesive CR traps more basally placed from species with adhesive traps (PP = 100% in Bayesian, BS = 68% in ML, BS = 100% in NJ). Subsequently, the adhesive traps resulted in two main clades: one clade (PP = 100% in Bayesian, BS = 99% in ML, BS = 97% in NJ) consists of species with AC (blue color in Fig. 3) and AN (red color in Fig. 3), and the species with AC more basally placed from other species with AN. The other clade (PP = 100% in Bayesian, BS = 95% in ML, BS = 96% in NJ) contains subclades corresponding to those species which can form both AK and NCR (brown color in Fig. 3) or those species only forming AK (green color in Fig. 3). Within this clade, the species forming AK associated with NCR separated early from other species, and one species forming AK and NCR showed close relationships with the species with AK. Moreover, two species forming sessile knobs (Dactylellina parvicollis and Dactylellina phymatopaga) diverged early from other species forming stalked knobs (Dactylellina drechsleri, Dactylellina entomopaga, and Dactylellina ellipsospora) (Fig. 3). However, phylogenetic trees based on the fragments of ITS (Supplementary Fig. S2) show similar topologies with the phylogenetic trees of Mad1 fragments with the exception that the species with AC first diverged from other adhesive traps (Supplementary Fig. S3).

Figure 3: Phylogenetic analyses based on the encoding sequences of Mad1 genes.
figure 3

Bayesian, maximum-likelihood (ML), and neighbor-joining (NJ) tree reconstructions of the Mad1 gene sequences presented similar overall topologies. The bootstrap values of each branch for different methodologies are indicated (Bayesian/ML/NJ). The species names which can produce different trapping devices are showed with different colors: red for AN-forming species, blue for AC-forming species, brown for AK and NCR-forming species, green for AK-forming species, pink for CR-forming species and black for Dactylella species.

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Selective pressure analyses

To investigate the possible selective forces behind the Mad1 homologs during the evolution of various trapping devices in nematode-trapping fungi, we conducted LRT for those ancestral branches of each type of trap structure. Table 2 shows the evidence for positive selection of Mad1 genes. In the branch-specific model analyses, the free-ratio model, M1a, revealed a significantly better fit to the data than did the one-ratio model, M0 (2ΔL = 348.64117, p < 0.001, Table 2), suggesting that Mad1genes have been the subjects of different selective pressures. In the site-specific model analyses, although the LRT of M2a/M1a did not achieve statistical significance (2ΔL = 0, P = 1.000, Table 2), M8, another positive-selection model, provided a significantly better fit to the data than did the neutral model (M7) (2ΔL = 1992.17435, P < 0.001, Table 2), suggesting the possibility of positive selection acting on the Mad1 genes in the nematode-trapping fungi examined here.

Table 2 CODEML analyses of selective pressures for Mad1 genes in nematode-trapping fungi.
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When we performed the branch-site model tests for those ancestral branches of each type of trap structure (10 branches in total, a–j as indicated in Fig. 1), we found that except for branches c and j, all branches (branches a, b, d, e, f, g, h and i) showed signs of positive selection (Fig. 1). After Bonferroni correction for multiple testing, we found that LRT results were still significant in eight branches (p <0.005) (Table 2, Fig. 1). Remarkably, several positively selected residues were also identified for these branches with high posterior probabilities (Table 2 and Fig. 1).

Discussion

In examining the Mad1 sequences from each type of trapping device, we found that all sequences contained a predicted glycosylphosphatidylinositol cell wall anchor site at their C-terminal region, implying they are cell wall proteins. The major differences among these sequences from different trap-forming groups are in the Thr-rich random repeats domain. Previous studies revealed that the tandem repeats are heavily glycosylated to produce a rigid elongated structure that holds the adhesive N-terminal domain at the cell surface53,54, and the tandem repeat region of the C. albicans cell wall protein FLO11 is required for yeast pseudohypha formation55. This region was shown to be necessary and sufficient for adhesion to tick cells56. Thus, the random repeats domain may be related to the adhesive properties of Mad1, which permit nematode-trapping fungi to adhere to nematode cuticles. As seen in Fig. 2, all the sequences amplified from the species which can form adhesive traps contain Thr-rich domains though the amino acid sequences and numbers of the tandem repeats are different among trap types, suggesting that the N-terminal ligand binding region located outside the cell surface may be different in various trapping structures. Especially, the Thr-rich regions of the Mad1 genes from the AC-forming species are less conserved (Fig. 2), suggesting the less adhesive properties of the Mad1 proteins in AC-forming species. It is surprising that no tandem repeats are found in the sequences from CR-forming species (Fig. 2), suggesting that the N-terminal ligand binding region may be shorter or absent in the CR-forming species, consistent with the observation that the CR-forming species capture nematodes mainly using mechanical force.

Subsequently, phylogenetic analyses based on the Mad1 homologs consistently suggested that the trap devices evolved in two ways with two different trapping mechanisms (adhesive and nonadhesive) (Fig. 3). The nonadhesive traps, CR, separated early from species with adhesive traps, suggesting the primitive character of CR. This result concurs with previous studies performed by Yang et al.26,27. Evolution of the adhesive trapping structures also separated in two directions: the evolution of AN from AC, and the evolution of species which only produce AK from the species producing AK associated with NCR. Within the latter direction, NCR were generally discarded during evolution because of their low efficiency in capturing nematodes. Also, the stalked knobs evolved from sessile knobs. Moreover, the phylogenetic tree (Supplementary Fig. S3) based on the ITS fragments of nematode-trapping fungi in our study shows limited differences from previous phylogenetic trees constructed based on the combined data from several housekeeping genes, especially the relationships among the adhesive traps. In conclusion, all the phylogenetic trees including those previously reported and ours in this study consistently supported the results that the adhesive and nonadhesive traps evolved independently, and the CR is the most ancestral trap of nematode-trapping fungi. However, obtaining more adhesive proteins or other genes related to trap formation may provide more information for understanding the evolution of trap structures. Our study based on the adhesive protein MAD1 proposed a new evolutionary hypothesis of the nematode-trapping fungi producing various trapping devices.

Interestingly, LRT analysis suggested that the Mad1 genes most likely underwent positive selection during the evolution of nematode-trapping fungi (Fig. 1 and Table 2). It is reasonable to presume that significant selective pressures acted on the ancestral branches of adhesive trapping devices (branches a, b, g, and h) because MAD1 is secreted outside the cell wall to help nematode-trapping fungi to adhere to nematodes. To maintain their function, selective pressure might have acted on these lineages and promoted fungal adaptions. However, we did not observed positive selective pressure on the branch which produced AK and NCR (branch c). The ancestral branch (branch g) representing both AK and NCR-forming and AK-forming species experienced significant pressure, suggesting that positive selective pressures likely acted on them at the beginning. Interestingly, for the lineages of adhesive traps, most of the positively selected sites were located at the Thr-rich domains and some sites were even located within the random repeats (such as V48P, V69P, V94P, and V110P in branch b; P28V/A/I, P48V, and P94V in branch g), further implying the importance of the Thr-rich domain of Mad1 genes in fungi with adhesive traps.

Surprisingly, significant positive selective pressure also likely acted on the ancestral branch of CR-forming species which do not use adhesions to capture nematodes (branch i). This unexpected result indicates Mad1 genes likely have evolved other uncharacterized functions in CR-forming fungi. Recently, the AoMad1 gene has been knocked out from the nematode-trapping fungus A. oligospora. Interestingly, although the cell surface adhesive materials within the network disappeared and the cell wall structure showed more porosity after deletion of the gene AoMad1, more traps were formed in the mutant than in the wild type with the presence of nematodes. Meanwhile, a great number of genes were differentially expressed by transcriptomic analysis. In view of this, Liang et al. assumed that AoMad1 may play a key role in A. oligospora’s recognition of host signals and trigger life style switching. However, despite the lack of molecular experiments on CR-forming nematode-trapping fungi, we propose that the Mad1 genes may have multiple functions in nematode-trapping fungi beyond allowing fungi to adhere to nematodes. In addition, the selected positive sites on this branch were mainly located on the CFEM domain and Pro-rich domain (Y186T, G197N, C272A, V296T, V321I, and M412A), suggesting that these domains are very important for Mad1 genes to execute their functions in CR-forming fungi. Also, as the domains are conserved in the other nematode-trapping species, we speculate that the Thr-rich domain likely plays a key role in helping nematode-trapping fungi capture nematodes, while the CEFM domain and Pro-rich domain may play other functions in nematode-trapping fungi.

Conclusions

Based on the phylogenetic analyses of the Mad1 fragments related to adhesive materials, our study provides new insights into the evolution of trapping devices of nematode-trapping fungi. As with the evolutionary hypothesis proposed based on the housekeeping rDNA genes, our phylogenetic analyses provide evidence that the adhesive and nonadhesive traps evolved independently and the CR is the most ancestral type of trap in nematode-trapping fungi. However, there are differences among the evolutionary paths leading to different adhesive traps. Analyses based on more functional genes related to trap formation may provide more information for understanding the evolution of trap structures.

In addition, the evidence for positive selection detected in the Mad1 genes of nematode-trapping fungi in the present study suggests that the Mad1 genes may have played important roles during the evolution of nematode-trapping fungi. Also, it will be interesting to test the functional effects of amino acid substitutions for the identified positively selected sites in future studies.

Additional Information

How to cite this article: Li, J. et al. Phylogenic analysis of adhesion related genes Mad1 revealed a positive selection for the evolution of trapping devices of nematode-trapping fungi. Sci. Rep. 6, 22609; doi: 10.1038/srep22609 (2016).