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07:09
A Bioinformatics Pipeline for Investigating Molecular Evolution and Gene Expression using RNA-seq
Published on: May 28, 2021
Evolution at two levels in fire ants: the relationship between patterns of gene expression and protein sequence
Brendan G Hunt1, Lino Ometto, Laurent Keller
1School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. brendan.hunt@gatech.edu
Molecular Biology and Evolution
|October 12, 2012
Summary
Selective pressures shape both protein evolution and gene expression in fire ants. Genes with high expression variation across contexts also show faster protein sequence evolution, indicating joint regulation by selection.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Genomics
- Social insect biology
Background:
- Phenotypic diversity in eusocial insects arises from variations in protein sequence and gene expression.
- Gene expression is critical for differentiating sexes and castes in social insects.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the interplay between protein sequence evolution and gene expression patterns in fire ants (Solenopsis invicta and S. richteri).
- To understand how natural selection influences both coding sequence and gene expression regulation.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of protein coding sequences and gene expression patterns across two fire ant species and their hybrids.
- Assessment of gene expression variability within and between castes, sexes, species, and hybrids.
Main Results:
- Genes exhibiting high expression variability in one context also showed high variability in other contexts (e.g., between castes, sexes, or species).
- Both intra- and interspecific gene expression variation positively correlated with the rate of protein sequence evolution.
- This suggests that genes under similar selective constraints exhibit coordinated evolution at both sequence and expression levels.
Conclusions:
- Selective constraints act concurrently on protein sequence evolution and gene expression regulation.
- The study provides strong evidence for joint mediation of evolutionary processes by selection across different biological scales and timeframes.
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