Evolutionary expressed sequence tag analysis of Drosophila female reproductive tracts identifies genes subjected to positive selection - PubMed (original) (raw)

Evolutionary expressed sequence tag analysis of Drosophila female reproductive tracts identifies genes subjected to positive selection

Willie J Swanson et al. Genetics. 2004 Nov.

Abstract

Genes whose products are involved in reproduction include some of the fastest-evolving genes found within the genomes of several organisms. Drosophila has long been used to study the function and evolutionary dynamics of genes thought to be involved in sperm competition and sexual conflict, two processes that have been hypothesized to drive the adaptive evolution of reproductive molecules. Several seminal fluid proteins (Acps) made in the Drosophila male reproductive tract show evidence of rapid adaptive evolution. To identify candidate genes in the female reproductive tract that may be involved in female-male interactions and that may thus have been subjected to adaptive evolution, we used an evolutionary bioinformatics approach to analyze sequences from a cDNA library that we have generated from Drosophila female reproductive tracts. We further demonstrate that several of these genes have been subjected to positive selection. Their expression in female reproductive tracts, presence of signal sequences/transmembrane domains, and rapid adaptive evolution indicate that they are prime candidates to encode female reproductive molecules that interact with rapidly evolving male Acps.

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Figures

F<sc>igure</sc> 1.—

Figure 1.—

Analysis of 70 genes, from published research articles on detecting adaptive evolution by analysis for variation in the _d_N/_d_S ratio between sites by the method of Y

ang

et al. (2000). Additional information and references can be found as online supplementary material at

http://www.genetics.org/supplemental/

.

F<sc>igure</sc> 2.—

Figure 2.—

Plot of _d_N _vs. d_S for the 461 D. simulans ESTs that matched protein-coding regions of D. melanogaster genes. The solid line is the neutral expectation of _d_N/_d_S = 1. The dashed line is the cutoff of _d_N/_d_S = 0.5 used to identify candidate genes that may have been subjected to positive selection.

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