Evolutionary flexibility in flooding response circuitry in angiosperms.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Reynoso MA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7710369 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Variation in gene expression is known to be important for morphological evolution, however little is known about its general propensity. Here we examine a pair of frogs M-bM-^@M-^S Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis M-bM-^@M-^S with highly similar embryology, and ask how their transcriptomes compare. Despite separation for over ~30-90 million years we found a strong conservation in gene expression in the vast majority of the expressed orthologs. There were a significant number of changes in the level of expression of genes. Changes in timing of expression, heterochrony, were much less common, and were often found in genes and pathways that reflect responses to selective features of the environment. Differences in gene expression levels were concentrated in the earliest embryonic stages. We propose that different evolutionary rates across developmental stages may be explained by the stabilization of cell fate determination pathways in later stages. 96 microarrays, across developmental stages in Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis in wildtype embryos. For each of the two timecourse indepenent triplicates (clutches) were generated.
2011-06-01 | E-GEOD-27227 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Since the insights by Charles Darwin, heterostyly, a floral polymorphism with morphs bearing stigmas and anthers at reciprocal heights, has become a model system for the study of natural selection. Based on his archetypal heterostylous flower, including regular symmetry, few stamens and a tube, Darwin hypothesised that heterostyly evolved to promote outcrossing through efficient pollen transfer between morphs involving different areas of a pollinator's body, thus proposing his seminal pollination-precision hypothesis. Here we update the number of heterostylous and other style-length polymorphic taxa to 247 genera belonging to 34 families, notably expanding known cases by 20%. Using phylogenetic and comparative analyses across the angiosperms, we show numerous independent origins of style-length polymorphism associated with actinomorphic, tubular flowers with a low number of sex organs, stamens fused to the corolla, and pollination by long-tongued insects. These associations provide support for the Darwinian pollination-precision hypothesis as a basis for convergent evolution of heterostyly across angiosperms.
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Project description:Although plant mitochondrial genomes typically show low rates of sequence evolution, levels of divergence in certain angiosperm lineages suggest anomalously high mitochondrial mutation rates. However, de novo mutations have never been directly analyzed in such lineages. Recent advances in high-fidelity DNA sequencing technologies have enabled detection of mitochondrial mutations when still present at low heteroplasmic frequencies. To date, these approaches have only been performed on a single plant species (Arabidopsis thaliana). Here, we apply a high-fidelity technique (Duplex Sequencing) to multiple angiosperms from the genus Silene, which exhibits extreme heterogeneity in rates of mitochondrial sequence evolution among close relatives. Consistent with phylogenetic evidence, we found that Silene latifolia maintains low mitochondrial variant frequencies that are comparable with previous measurements in Arabidopsis. Silene noctiflora also exhibited low variant frequencies despite high levels of historical sequence divergence, which supports other lines of evidence that this species has reverted to lower mitochondrial mutation rates after a past episode of acceleration. In contrast, S. conica showed much higher variant frequencies in mitochondrial (but not in plastid) DNA, consistent with an ongoing bout of elevated mitochondrial mutation rates. Moreover, we found an altered mutational spectrum in S. conica heavily biased towards AT→GC transitions. We also observed an unusually low number of mitochondrial genome copies per cell in S. conica, potentially pointing to reduced opportunities for homologous recombination to accurately repair mismatches in this species. Overall, these results suggest that historical fluctuations in mutation rates are driving extreme variation in rates of plant mitochondrial sequence evolution.
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2011-06-01 | GSE27227 | GEO
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