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Adaptive evolution of the Hox gene family for development in bats and dolphins
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 6, p e65944 (2013), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2013
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2013.
-
Abstract
- Bats and cetaceans (i.e., whales, dolphins, porpoises) are two kinds of mammals with unique locomotive styles and occupy novel niches. Bats are the only mammals capable of sustained flight in the sky, while cetaceans have returned to the aquatic environment and are specialized for swimming. Associated with these novel adaptations to their environment, various development changes have occurred to their body plans and associated structures. Given the importance of Hox genes in many aspects of embryonic development, we conducted an analysis of the coding regions of all Hox gene family members from bats (represented by Pteropus vampyrus, Pteropus alecto, Myotis lucifugus and Myotis davidii) and cetaceans (represented by Tursiops truncatus) for adaptive evolution using the available draft genome sequences. Differences in the selective pressures acting on many Hox genes in bats and cetaceans were found compared to other mammals. Positive selection, however, was not found to act on any of the Hox genes in the common ancestor of bats and only upon Hoxb9 in cetaceans. PCR amplification data from additional bat and cetacean species, and application of the branch-site test 2, showed that the Hoxb2 gene within bats had significant evidence of positive selection. Thus, our study, with genomic and newly sequenced Hox genes, identifies two candidate Hox genes that may be closely linked with developmental changes in bats and cetaceans, such as those associated with the pancreatic, neuronal, thymus shape and forelimb. In addition, the difference in our results from the genome-wide scan and newly sequenced data reveals that great care must be taken in interpreting results from draft genome data from a limited number of species, and deep genetic sampling of a particular clade is a powerful tool for generating complementary data to address this limitation.
- Subjects :
- Evolutionary Genetics
Anatomy and Physiology
animal structures
Animal Evolution
Dolphins
Zoology
lcsh:Medicine
Genome
Evolution, Molecular
Chiroptera
Animals
Comparative Anatomy
Hox gene
lcsh:Science
Biology
Musculoskeletal System
Musculoskeletal Anatomy
Genome Evolution
Evolutionary Biology
Multidisciplinary
Natural selection
biology
Human evolutionary genetics
Evolutionary Developmental Biology
lcsh:R
Genes, Homeobox
Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
Genomics
Myotis lucifugus
Comparative Genomics
Pteropus
biology.organism_classification
Myotis davidii
Organismal Evolution
lcsh:Q
Pteropus alecto
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 8
- Issue :
- 6
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....384bb7eb1432a472698ebf8c008a5e59