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Related Experiment Videos

A screen for fast evolving genes from Drosophila

K J Schmid1, D Tautz

  • 1Zoologisches Institut der Universität München, Luisenstrasse 14, 80333 Munich, Germany.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|September 2, 1997
PubMed
Summary

Over one-third of Drosophila genes evolve rapidly, showing high protein sequence divergence. This suggests many genes in the Drosophila genome are not under strong negative selection, impacting evolutionary rates.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genomics
  • Molecular Evolution

Background:

  • Understanding protein sequence divergence is crucial for evolutionary studies.
  • Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila virilis are key model organisms for comparative genomics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To quantify protein sequence divergence rates in Drosophila.
  • To identify and characterize fast-evolving genes within the Drosophila genome.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a screening method to differentiate between slow and fast evolving genes.
  • Utilized cDNA cross-hybridization between Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila virilis.
  • Sequenced homologs from Drosophila yakuba for evolutionary analysis and assessed within-species polymorphisms.

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Main Results:

  • Over one-third of randomly selected cDNAs from Drosophila melanogaster showed no cross-hybridization with Drosophila virilis DNA, indicating high divergence rates.
  • Amino acid substitution rates for these fast-evolving genes are among the fastest known, approaching silent substitution rates.
  • Analysis of within-species polymorphisms revealed a high number of polymorphic amino acid positions, suggesting relaxed negative selection.

Conclusions:

  • The Drosophila genome contains a significant proportion of genes exhibiting very high divergence rates.
  • These findings challenge assumptions about strong purifying selection acting on all protein-coding genes.