Final Report Summary - TAPAS (Tracing Antimicrobial peptides and Pheromones in the Amphibian Skin)
The ERC project TAPAS (Tracing Antimicrobial peptides and Pheromones in the Amphibian Skin) enhanced our understanding of the functional and ecological evolution of proteins in the amphibian skin, from pheromone communication and defense, through keratin evolution and disease resistance. The project surprisingly showed that adaptative evolution in distantly related amphibian taxa may lead to striking molecular convergence and eventually culminate in identical gene products. Studies on keratins in the amphian skin revealed that multiple keratins that make up the amphibian toe pad belong to different keratin lineages that originated in an early tetrapod ancestor, and evolved to become the major keratin types of human hair. As an important part of the project, multiple studies showed that chemical communication is more central in both frog and salamander communication than previously acknowledged, and that protein families that guide chemical courtship in these amphibians share very similar structural characteristics and evolutionary diversification patterns. This project also assisted in the identification of a new chytrid pathogen, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans sp. nov., that causes lethal skin infections in salamanders and has resulted in steep declines in salamander populations in northwestern Europe. Finally, the general dynamics around herpetological research that was created by this TAPAS project led to an international and unique 2-year Master specialization program in herpetology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.