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Inter- and intraspecific variation in Drosophila genes with sex-biased expression.

ABSTRACT: Genes with sexually dimorphic expression (sex-biased genes) often evolve rapidly and are thought to make an important contribution to reproductive isolation between species. We examined the molecular evolution of sex-biased genes in Drosophila melanogaster and D. ananassae, which represent two independent lineages within the melanogaster group. We find that strong purifying selection limits protein sequence variation within species, but that a considerable fraction of divergence between species can be attributed to positive selection. In D. melanogaster, the proportion of adaptive substitutions between species is greatest for male-biased genes and is especially high for those on the X chromosome. In contrast, male-biased genes do not show unusually high variation within or between populations. A similar pattern is seen at the level of gene expression, where sex-biased genes show high expression divergence between species, but low divergence between populations. In D. ananassae, there is no increased rate of adaptation of male-biased genes, suggesting that the type or strength of selection acting on sex-biased genes differs between lineages.

SUBMITTER: Muller L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3270394 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Inter- and intraspecific variation in Drosophila genes with sex-biased expression.

Müller Lena L Grath Sonja S von Heckel Korbinian K Parsch John J

International journal of evolutionary biology 20120112

Genes with sexually dimorphic expression (sex-biased genes) often evolve rapidly and are thought to make an important contribution to reproductive isolation between species. We examined the molecular evolution of sex-biased genes in Drosophila melanogaster and D. ananassae, which represent two independent lineages within the melanogaster group. We find that strong purifying selection limits protein sequence variation within species, but that a considerable fraction of divergence between species ...[more]

PMID: 22315698

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Project description:BackgroundGenes with sex-biased expression often show rapid molecular evolution between species. Previous population genetic and comparative genomic studies of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans revealed that male-biased genes have especially high rates of adaptive evolution. To test if this is also the case for other lineages within the melanogaster group, we investigated gene expression in D. ananassae, a species that occurs in structured populations in tropical and subtropical regions. We used custom-made microarrays and published microarray data to characterize the sex-biased expression of 129 D. ananassae genes whose D. melanogaster orthologs had been classified previously as male-biased, female-biased, or unbiased in their expression and had been studied extensively at the population-genetic level. For 43 of these genes we surveyed DNA sequence polymorphism in a natural population of D. ananassae and determined divergence to the sister species D. atripex and D. phaeopleura.ResultsSex-biased expression is generally conserved between D. melanogaster and D. ananassae, with the majority of genes exhibiting the same bias in the two species. However, about one-third of the genes have either gained or lost sex-biased expression in one of the species and a small proportion of genes (approximately 4%) have changed bias from one sex to the other. The male-biased genes of D. ananassae show evidence of positive selection acting at the protein level. However, the signal of adaptive protein evolution for male-biased genes is not as strong in D. ananassae as it is in D. melanogaster and is limited to genes with conserved male-biased expression in both species. Within D. ananassae, a significant signal of adaptive evolution is also detected for female-biased and unbiased genes.ConclusionsOur findings extend previous observations of widespread adaptive protein evolution to an independent Drosophila lineage, the D. ananassae subgroup. However, the rate of adaptive evolution is not greater for male-biased genes than for female-biased or unbiased genes, which suggests that there are differences in sex-biased gene evolution between the two lineages.

Dataset Information

Inter- and intraspecific variation in Drosophila genes with sex-biased expression.

Publications

Inter- and intraspecific variation in Drosophila genes with sex-biased expression.

Similar Datasets

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