Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Feb 27;365(1540):605-16. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0255.
Both genetic and environmental factors underlie phenotypic variation. While research at the interface of evolutionary and developmental biology has made excellent advances in understanding the contribution of genes to morphology, less well understood is the manner in which environmental cues are incorporated during development to influence the phenotype. Also virtually unexplored is how evolutionary transitions between environmental and genetic control of trait variation are achieved. Here, I review investigations into molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic plasticity in the aphid wing dimorphism system. Among aphids, some species alternate between environmentally sensitive (polyphenic) and genetic (polymorphic) control of wing morph determination in their life cycle. Therefore, a traditional molecular genetic approach into understanding the genetically controlled polymorphism may provide a unique avenue into not only understanding the molecular basis of polyphenic variation in this group, but also the opportunity to compare and contrast the mechanistic basis of environmental and genetic control of similar dimorphisms.
表型变异既有遗传因素也有环境因素。虽然进化生物学和发育生物学的交叉研究在理解基因对形态的贡献方面取得了卓越的进展，但对于环境线索在发育过程中是如何被纳入以影响表型的方式，人们的了解还较少。同样几乎没有探索的是，如何实现从环境和遗传控制特征变异之间的进化转变。在这里，我回顾了对蚜虫翅二型性系统中表型可塑性的分子机制的研究。在蚜虫中，一些物种在其生命周期中交替经历环境敏感（多态性）和遗传（多态性）控制的翅膀形态决定。因此，传统的分子遗传学方法可以深入了解遗传控制的多态性，不仅为理解该群体中多态性变异的分子基础提供了独特的途径，而且还为比较和对比类似二态性的环境和遗传控制的机制基础提供了机会。
