The extracellular milieu of Toxoplasma-s lytic cycle drives lab-adaptation and promotes changes in lipid metabolism primarily driven by transcriptional reprogramming

To map host-independent in vitro virulence traits of Toxoplasma gondii, evolve and resequencing (E&R) during the lab-adaption was applied. Phenotypic assessments of the lytic cycle revealed that only traits needed in the extracellular milieu evolved. Surprisingly, only non-synonymous mutations in a P4 flippase fixed in two populations. However, dramatic changes in the transcriptional signature of extracellular parasites revealed a "pro-tachyzoite" profile as well as upregulation of fatty acid biosynthesis (FASII) pathway genes. More general, a set of 300 genes which expression profile changes during evolution mapped to specific traits. Validation of a select number of genes in this set by knock-outs indeed confirmed their role in lab-adaptation. Finally, assembly of an ApiAP2 and Myb transcription factor network revealed the transcriptional program underlying the adapting extracellular state. Overall, E&R is a new genomic tool successfully applied to map the development of polygenic traits underlying in vitro virulence of T. gondii.