Diet and the evolution of ADH7 across seven orders of mammals

Dietary variation within and across species drives the eco-evolutionary responsiveness of genes necessary to metabolize nutrients and other components. Recent evidence from humans and other mammals suggests that sugar-rich diets of floral nectar and ripe fruit have favoured mutations in, and functional preservation of, the ADH7 gene, which encodes the ADH class 4 enzyme responsible for metabolizing ethanol. Here we interrogate a large, comparative dataset of ADH7 gene sequence variation, including that underlying the amino acid residue located at the key site (294) that regulates the affinity of ADH7 for ethanol. Our analyses span 171 mammal species, including 59 newly sequenced. We report extensive variation, especially among frugivorous and nectarivorous bats, with potential for functional impact. We also report widespread variation in the retention and probable pseudogenization of ADH7. However, we find little statistical evidence of an overarching impact of dietary behaviour on putative ADH7 function or presence of derived alleles at site 294 across mammals, which suggests that the evolution of ADH7 is shaped by complex factors. Our study reports extensive new diversity in a gene of longstanding ecological interest, offers new sources of variation to be explored in functional assays in future study, and advances our understanding of the processes of molecular evolution.