Novel male-biased expression in paralogs of the aphid slilmfast nutrient amino acid transporter expansion
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ABSTRACT: A major goal of molecular evolutionary biology is to understand the fate and consequences of duplicated genes. In this context, aphids are particularly intriguing because the newly sequenced pea aphid genome is characterized by extraordinarily high levels of lineage-specific gene duplication relative to other insect genomes. While analyzing the results of a microarray comparing gene expression between male, sexual female and asexual female Myzus persicae aphids, we unexpectedly found duplicated nutrient amino acid transporters highly upregulated in males. These transporters, homologous to the Drosophila slimfast, belong to an aphid-specific gene family expansion in which other paralogs are thought to have functionally diverged to fill a role in mediating interactions between aphids and their nutrititonally required bacterial symbiont. The lack of a known male role for slimfast in other insects suggests that aphid slimfast paralogs have been retained as a result of functional divergence to fill multiple novel functional roles in symbiosis and in males.
ORGANISM(S): Myzus persicae
PROVIDER: GSE31024 | GEO | 2011/09/14
SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA144917
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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