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Demystifying phenotypes: The comparative genomics of evo-devo

Carlo G. Artieri and Rama S. Singh

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Developmental geneticists have spearheaded the synthesis of evolutionary and developmental biology, a.k.a 'evo-devo', leading to a wealth of recent insights about how morphological diversity has evolved. However, there exists a gap between these disciplines, and evo-devo has not benefited from an integration of the principles derived from population genetics and molecular evolution. In order to contribute to the remediation of this deficiency, we recently performed a study investigating how genes diverge among closely related species of Drosophila as a function of when they are expressed during development. We found that patterns of genetic divergence parallels morphology: interspecific divergence accumulates as development progresses. We also sought to test whether this positive gradient of divergence over ontogeny is best explained by purifying selection constraining the divergence of early-expressed genes or positive selection driving the evolution of those expressed later. Interestingly, we found evidence that both processes occur simultaneously. We argue that comparative genomics approaches, by juxtaposing gene- and phenotype-level divergence, particularly among closely related species, have much to contribute to the ongoing evo-devo synthesis, complementing traditional genetics-based techniques with large-scale screening analyses uncovering the mechanisms underlying developmental change.

Artieri CG, Haerty W, Singh RS. Ontogeny and phylogeny: molecular signatures of selection, constraint, and temporal pleiotropy in the development of Drosophila. BMC Biol 2009; 7:42; PMCID: 2722573.

Authors

Carlo G. Artieri

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; National Institutes of Health; Bethesda, MD USA

Rama S. Singh Corresponding author: singh@mcmaster.ca

McMaster University; Hamilton, ON Canada

This is an open-access article

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If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.