Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 80-680 Gdańsk, Poland.
Faculty of Biology, University of Gdańsk, 80-308 Gdańsk, Poland.
Genes (Basel). 2023 Feb 5;14(2):416. doi: 10.3390/genes14020416.
Adaptive evolution is a process in which variation that confers an evolutionary advantage in a specific environmental context arises and is propagated through a population. When investigating this process, researchers have mainly focused on describing advantageous phenotypes or putative advantageous genotypes. A recent increase in molecular data accessibility and technological advances has allowed researchers to go beyond description and to make inferences about the mechanisms underlying adaptive evolution. In this systematic review, we discuss articles from 2016 to 2022 that investigated or reviewed the molecular mechanisms underlying adaptive evolution in vertebrates in response to environmental variation. Regulatory elements within the genome and regulatory proteins involved in either gene expression or cellular pathways have been shown to play key roles in adaptive evolution in response to most of the discussed environmental factors. Gene losses were suggested to be associated with an adaptive response in some contexts. Future adaptive evolution research could benefit from more investigations focused on noncoding regions of the genome, gene regulation mechanisms, and gene losses potentially yielding advantageous phenotypes. Investigating how novel advantageous genotypes are conserved could also contribute to our knowledge of adaptive evolution.
适应进化是一个过程，其中在特定环境背景下赋予进化优势的变异出现并在种群中传播。在研究这个过程时，研究人员主要集中在描述有利的表型或假定有利的基因型上。最近，分子数据的可访问性和技术的进步使得研究人员不仅能够进行描述，还能够对适应进化的潜在机制进行推断。在本次系统综述中，我们讨论了 2016 年至 2022 年的文章，这些文章探讨或回顾了脊椎动物对环境变化的适应进化的分子机制。基因组内的调控元件和参与基因表达或细胞途径的调控蛋白被证明在对大多数讨论的环境因素的适应进化中起着关键作用。在某些情况下，基因丢失被认为与适应反应有关。未来的适应进化研究可以从更多关注基因组的非编码区域、基因调控机制和可能产生有利表型的基因丢失中受益。研究新的有利基因型是如何被保存的，也可以增进我们对适应进化的认识。
