Wighard Sara, Sommer Ralf J
Max Planck Institute for Biology Tuebingen, Department for Integrative Evolutionary Biology, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany.
Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), Vienna BioCenter (VBC), 1030 Vienna, Austria.
Biology (Basel). 2024 Nov 13;13(11):922. doi: 10.3390/biology13110922.
Polyphenisms, the capability of organisms to form two or more alternative phenotypes in response to environmental variation, are prevalent in nature. However, associated molecular mechanisms and potential general principles of polyphenisms among major organismal groups remain currently unknown. This review focuses on an emerging model system for developmental plasticity and polyphenism research, the nematode and explores mechanistic insight obtained through unbiased genetic, experimental and natural variation studies. Resulting findings identify a central role for epigenetic switches in the environmental control of alternative phenotypes and their micro-and macroevolution. Several features observed in are shared with insects and plants and might become general principles for the control of polyphenisms during development.
表型多态性是指生物体根据环境变化形成两种或更多种不同表型的能力，在自然界中普遍存在。然而，主要生物类群中表型多态性的相关分子机制和潜在的一般原理目前仍不清楚。这篇综述聚焦于一个新兴的发育可塑性和表型多态性研究模型系统——线虫，并探讨通过无偏遗传、实验和自然变异研究获得的机制性见解。研究结果确定了表观遗传开关在替代表型的环境控制及其微观和宏观进化中的核心作用。在线虫中观察到的几个特征与昆虫和植物相同，可能成为发育过程中表型多态性控制的一般原理。
