Repeated phenotypic changes highlight molecular targets of convergent evolution 英文参考文献.docVIP

Wagner and Mitchell-Olds Genome Biology 2011,12:124 /2011/12/8/124 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT Repeated phenotypic changes highlight molecular targets of convergent evolution Maggie R Wagner and Thomas Mitchell-Olds* nucleotide changes can underlie similar phenotypic Abstract traits. eir investigation began by looking at variation How predictable is evolution at the molecular level? An example of repeated evolution in rice and Brassica illustrates how selection might preferentially target certain genes and mutations. within the Brassicaceae in the morphology of the replum, a structure dividing the two valves of the fruit. e long seed capsules, or siliques, of wild-type Arabidopsis plants boast a wide replum that fully separates the valve Keywords Convergence; parallel evolution; cis-regulatory evolution; fruit development;Brassica; natural selection; articial selection; pleiotropy. margins, whereas Brassica fruits have a thin replum that is breached by the valve margins [3], similar to that of the Arabidopsis mutant replumless (rpl). Phylogenetic foot- printing followed by transgenic veri?cation revealed that a CT point mutation in a cis-regulatory element of RPL, which encodes a transcription factor, explains the evolu- Evolution sometimes repeats itself. Similar phenotypes arise not only from genetic heritage but also from the tion of a thin replum in Brassica from the ancestral wide shared need to adapt to certain ecological challenges, a replum of Arabidopsis. e wide- and thin-replum forms need that is shared even between lineages that are widely separated in time and space. For instance, succulent stem tissue and leaves that are modi?ed into spines have arisen independently in the Old-World Euphorbiaceae and the of this cis-element (Shattering element-like (Shl)) are named C-Shl and T-Shl after the Arabidopsis and Brassica sequences, respectively. A reduc