School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, People's Republic of China.
Institute of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, People's Republic of China.
Proc Biol Sci. 2020 Sep 9;287(1934):20200875. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.0875.
Recently diverged taxa with contrasting phenotypes offer opportunities for unravelling the genetic basis of phenotypic variation in nature. Horseshoe bats are a speciose group that exhibit a derived form of high-duty cycle echolocation in which the inner ear is finely tuned to echoes of the narrowband call frequency. Here, by focusing on three recently diverged subspecies of the intermediate horseshoe bat () that display divergent echolocation call frequencies, we aim to identify candidate loci putatively involved in hearing frequency variation. We used de novo transcriptome sequencing of two mainland taxa ( and ) and one island taxon () to compare expression profiles of thousands of genes. By comparing taxa with divergent call frequencies (around 15 kHz difference), we identified 252 differentially expressed genes, of which six have been shown to be involved in hearing or deafness in human/mouse. To obtain further validation of these results, we applied quantitative reverse transcription-PCR to the candidate gene and found a broad association between the level of expression and call frequency across taxa. The genes identified here represent strong candidate loci associated with hearing frequency variation in bats.
最近分化的具有不同表型的分类群为揭示自然中表型变异的遗传基础提供了机会。马蹄蝠是一个种类繁多的群体，它们表现出一种衍生的高 duty cycle 回声定位形式，内耳对窄频呼叫频率的回声进行精细调整。在这里，我们专注于三种最近分化的中间马蹄蝠亚种（ ），它们表现出不同的回声定位呼叫频率，旨在确定候选基因座，这些基因座可能与听觉频率变化有关。我们使用两个大陆分类群（ 和 ）和一个岛屿分类群（ ）的从头转录组测序来比较数千个基因的表达谱。通过比较具有不同呼叫频率（约 15 kHz 差异）的分类群，我们鉴定出 252 个差异表达基因，其中 6 个已被证明与人类/小鼠的听力或耳聋有关。为了进一步验证这些结果，我们对候选基因 进行了定量逆转录 PCR，发现跨分类群的表达水平与呼叫频率之间存在广泛的关联。这里鉴定的基因代表了与蝙蝠听力频率变化相关的强候选基因座。
