Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Nat Rev Genet. 2012 Jun 18;13(7):505-16. doi: 10.1038/nrg3229.
The hypothesis that differences in gene regulation have an important role in speciation and adaptation is more than 40 years old. With the advent of new sequencing technologies, we are able to characterize and study gene expression levels and associated regulatory mechanisms in a large number of individuals and species at an unprecedented resolution and scale. We have thus gained new insights into the evolutionary pressures that shape gene expression levels and have developed an appreciation for the relative importance of evolutionary changes in different regulatory genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. The current challenge is to link gene regulatory changes to adaptive evolution of complex phenotypes. Here we mainly focus on comparative studies in primates and how they are complemented by studies in model organisms.
该假说认为，基因调控的差异在物种形成和适应中起着重要作用，这一假说已有 40 多年的历史。随着新测序技术的出现，我们能够以前所未有的分辨率和规模来描述和研究大量个体和物种中的基因表达水平和相关的调控机制。因此，我们对塑造基因表达水平的进化压力有了新的认识，并认识到不同调控遗传和表观遗传机制的进化变化的相对重要性。当前的挑战是将基因调控变化与复杂表型的适应性进化联系起来。在这里，我们主要关注灵长类动物的比较研究，以及这些研究如何得到模式生物研究的补充。
