A newly discovered ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2 correlated with the cryogenic autolysis of Volvariella volvacea

• UBEV2 is closely associated with cryogenic autolysis.
• A specific distribution of UBEV2 is associated with herb decay fungi.
• Recent positive selection took place after horizontal gene transfer of UBEV2.
• The cysteine–cysteine motif is characteristic of the UBEV2 family.
• UBEV2 is a new type of UBE2.

In Volvariella volvacea, a species of edible mushroom, cryogenic autolysis is a typical part of abnormal metabolism. Previous functional annotation cluster analyses of cold-induced gene expression profiles have shown that the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2 (UBE2), rather than the cyclin-like F-box domain alone, forms the functional cluster. In this study, analysis of gene expression profiling showed that only one type of UBE2 in V. volvacea (UBEV2) was significantly up-regulated. Further quantitative real-time PCR analysis confirmed that the expression of UBEV2 was significantly up-regulated (P < 0.05) after cold-treatment lasting 4, 6, and 8 h. This provided evidence that UBEV2 was closely correlated with cryogenic autolysis. The specific distribution of UBEV2 in recently diverged herb decay fungi indicated that UBEV2 was not evolutionarily correlated with early diverging fungi. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that UBEV2 was generated by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from the ancestry of Selaginella moellendorffii UBE2. Further relative time estimation and detection of natural selection showed that there has been recent positive selection after HGT in UBEV2. Molecular modeling and logo analysis showed that the cysteine–cysteine motif is the characteristic of the UBEV2 family. These observations indicate that UBEV2 is a new type of UBE2 correlated with the cryogenic autolysis of V. volvacea.

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