CIBIO/InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal.
Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Mar 19;116(12):5633-5642. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1820320116. Epub 2019 Feb 28.
Reptiles use pterin and carotenoid pigments to produce yellow, orange, and red colors. These conspicuous colors serve a diversity of signaling functions, but their molecular basis remains unresolved. Here, we show that the genomes of sympatric color morphs of the European common wall lizard (), which differ in orange and yellow pigmentation and in their ecology and behavior, are virtually undifferentiated. Genetic differences are restricted to two small regulatory regions near genes associated with pterin [ ()] and carotenoid [ ()] metabolism, demonstrating that a core gene in the housekeeping pathway of pterin biosynthesis has been coopted for bright coloration in reptiles and indicating that these loci exert pleiotropic effects on other aspects of physiology. Pigmentation differences are explained by extremely divergent alleles, and haplotype analysis revealed abundant transspecific allele sharing with other lacertids exhibiting color polymorphisms. The evolution of these conspicuous color ornaments is the result of ancient genetic variation and cross-species hybridization.
爬行动物使用蝶呤和类胡萝卜素色素产生黄色、橙色和红色。这些显眼的颜色具有多种信号功能，但它们的分子基础仍未解决。在这里，我们表明，在欧洲普通壁蜥（）的共生颜色形态的基因组中，橙色和黄色的色素沉着以及它们的生态和行为存在差异，但实际上没有区别。遗传差异仅限于与蝶呤[()]和类胡萝卜素[()]代谢相关的基因附近的两个小调控区域，表明蝶呤生物合成的管家途径中的一个核心基因已被爬行动物的鲜艳颜色所采用，并表明这些基因座对其他生理方面具有多效性影响。色素沉着差异可以用极其不同的等位基因来解释，单倍型分析显示与表现出色素多态性的其他蜥蜴科动物有大量的跨物种等位基因共享。这些显眼的颜色装饰物的进化是古老遗传变异和跨物种杂交的结果。
