Research Core for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Okayama University, Tsushima-naka 3-1-1, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8530, Japan.
Evolution. 2012 Sep;66(9):2878-90. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01636.x. Epub 2012 May 3.
Environmental canalization is defined as a reduction in the effect of external environmental perturbations on a phenotype, while phenotypic plasticity is defined as the production of different phenotypes in alternative environments. These terms describe different aspects of the same phenomenon, that is, the sensitivity of the phenotype to the environment. Genetic regulation of the environmental sensitivity has been a central topic in the field of evolutionary biology. In this study, we performed deficiency screening to detect genomic regions with effects on the environmental sensitivity of Drosophila melanogaster sensory bristles. We used a collection of isogenic deficiency strains established by the DrosDel Project for screening. We screened 423 genomic deficiencies that encompassed approximately 63.6% of the entire D. melanogaster genome. We identified 29 genomic deficiencies showing significant effects on environmental sensitivity, suggesting that multiple genomic regions may influence phenotypic variation. We also found significant correlations among the effects of deficiencies on environmental sensitivity for different bristle traits, suggesting that the same genetic mechanism can regulate environmental sensitivity of multiple traits. Current high-resolution mapping will facilitate the examination of individual candidate genes using mutations or RNAi approaches in future studies.
环境 canalization 被定义为减少外部环境干扰对表型的影响,而表型可塑性则被定义为在不同环境中产生不同表型的能力。这两个术语描述了同一现象的不同方面,即表型对环境的敏感性。环境敏感性的遗传调控一直是进化生物学领域的一个核心课题。在这项研究中,我们进行了缺失筛选,以检测影响黑腹果蝇感觉刚毛环境敏感性的基因组区域。我们使用了 DrosDel 项目建立的一套同基因缺失株系进行筛选。我们筛选了包含约 63.6%的整个 D. melanogaster 基因组的 423 个基因组缺失。我们鉴定了 29 个基因组缺失,它们对环境敏感性有显著影响,这表明多个基因组区域可能影响表型变异。我们还发现不同刚毛性状的缺失对环境敏感性的影响之间存在显著相关性,这表明相同的遗传机制可以调节多个性状的环境敏感性。目前的高分辨率作图将有助于在未来的研究中使用突变或 RNAi 方法对单个候选基因进行检查。