Natural variation in cardiac metabolism and gene expression in Fundulus heteroclitus.

ABSTRACT: Individual variation in gene expression is important for evolutionary adaptation and susceptibility to diseases and pathologies. In this study, we address the functional importance of this variation by comparing cardiac metabolism to patterns of mRNA expression using microarrays. There is extensive variation in both cardiac metabolism and the expression of metabolic genes among individuals of the teleost fish Fundulus heteroclitus from natural outbred populations raised in a common environment: metabolism differed among individuals by a factor of more than 2, and expression levels of 94% of genes were significantly different (P < 0.01) between individuals in a population. This unexpectedly high variation in metabolic gene expression explains much of the variation in metabolism, suggesting

SUBMITTER: Oleksiak MF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1447534 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature