Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.
Mol Biol Evol. 2013 Sep;30(9):2113-20. doi: 10.1093/molbev/mst111. Epub 2013 Jun 18.
Little is currently known about the genetic complexity of quantitative behavioral variation, the types of genes involved, or their effects on intermediate phenotypes. Here, we conduct a genome-wide association study of Drosophila melanogaster courtship song variation using 168 sequenced inbred lines, and fail to find highly significant associations. However, by combining these data with results from a well-powered Evolve and Resequence (E&R) study on the same trait, we provide statistical evidence that some power to associate genotype and phenotype is available. Genes that are significant in both analyses are enriched for expression in the nervous system, and affect neural development and synaptic growth when perturbed. Quantitative complementation at one of these loci, Syntrophin-like 1, supports a hypothesis that variation at this locus affects variation in the inter-pulse interval of courtship song. These results suggest that experimental evolution may provide an approach for genome-scale replication in Drosophila.
目前对于数量性行为变异的遗传复杂性、涉及的基因类型及其对中间表型的影响知之甚少。在这里，我们使用 168 个测序近交系对果蝇求爱歌曲变异进行了全基因组关联研究，并未发现高度显著的关联。然而，通过将这些数据与同一性状的强大进化和重测序（E&R）研究的结果相结合，我们提供了统计证据，表明存在将基因型和表型相关联的一些能力。在这两种分析中都显著的基因在神经系统中有表达富集，并在受到干扰时影响神经发育和突触生长。在这些基因中的一个位点——Syntrophin-like 1 的定量互补性支持了这样一种假设，即该位点的变异会影响求爱歌曲中脉冲间隔的变异。这些结果表明，实验进化可能为果蝇中的全基因组复制提供了一种方法。
