Abstract
BACKGROUND: G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of transmembrane receptors in fungi, where they play important roles in signal transduction. Among them, the Pth11-related GPCRs form a large and divergent protein family, and are only found in fungi in Pezizomycotina. However, the evolutionary process and potential functions of Pth11-related GPCRs remain largely unknown. RESULTS: Twenty genomes of fungi in Pezizomycotina covering different nutritional strategies were mined for putative Pth11-related GPCRs. Phytopathogens encode much more putative Pth11-related GPCRs than symbionts, saprophytes, or entomopathogens. Based on the phylogenetic tree, these GPCRs can be divided into nine clades, with each clade containing fungi in different taxonomic orders. Instead of fungi from the same order, those fungi with similar nutritional strategies were inclined to share orthologs of putative Pth11-related GPCRs. Most of the CFEM domain-containing Pth11-related GPCRs, which were only included in two clades, were detected in phytopathogens. Furthermore, many putative Pth11-related GPCR genes of phytopathogens were upregulated during invasive plant infection, but downregulated under biotic stress. The expressions of putative Pth11-related GPCR genes of saprophytes and entomopathogens could be affected by nutrient conditions, especially the carbon source. The gene expressions revealed that Pth11-related GPCRs could respond to biotic/abiotic stress and invasive plant infection with different expression patterns. CONCLUSION: Our results indicated that the Pth11-related GPCRs existed before the diversification of Pezizomycotina and have been gained and/or lost several times during the evolutionary process. Tandem duplications and trophic variations have been important factors in this evolution.