School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
San Diego Zoo Global, San Diego, CA, USA.
Mol Ecol Resour. 2021 Apr;21(3):721-732. doi: 10.1111/1755-0998.13295. Epub 2020 Nov 26.
Interindividual variation at genes known to play a role in reproduction may impact reproductive fitness. The Tasmanian devil is an endangered Australian marsupial with low genetic diversity. Recent work has shown concerning declines in productivity in both wild and captive populations over time. Understanding whether functional diversity exists at reproductive genes in the Tasmanian devil is a key first step in identifying genes that may influence productivity. We characterized single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at 214 genes involved in reproduction in 37 Tasmanian devils. Twenty genes contained nonsynonymous substitutions, with genes involved in embryogenesis, fertilization and hormonal regulation of reproduction displaying greater numbers of nonsynonymous SNPs than synonymous SNPs. Two genes, ADAMTS9 and NANOG, showed putative signatures of balancing selection indicating that natural selection is maintaining diversity at these genes despite the species exhibiting low overall levels of genetic diversity. We will use this information in future to examine the interplay between reproductive gene variation and reproductive fitness in Tasmanian devil populations.
个体间在已知与生殖作用相关的基因上的差异可能会影响生殖适应性。袋獾是一种澳大利亚有袋类濒危物种，其遗传多样性较低。最近的研究表明，袋獾的野生和圈养种群的生产力一直在下降。了解袋獾生殖基因是否存在功能多样性是确定可能影响生产力的基因的关键的第一步。我们在 37 只袋獾中鉴定了 214 个与生殖相关的基因中的单核苷酸多态性（SNP）。有 20 个基因包含非同义替换，涉及胚胎发生、受精和生殖激素调节的基因显示出比同义 SNP 更多的非同义 SNP。两个基因，ADAMTS9 和 NANOG，显示出平衡选择的可能特征，这表明尽管该物种表现出总体遗传多样性较低，但自然选择仍在维持这些基因的多样性。我们将在未来利用这些信息来研究袋獾种群中生殖基因变异与生殖适应性之间的相互作用。
