Frequent Recent Origination of Brain Genes Shaped the Evolution of Foraging Behavior in Drosophila
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Chen-2012-Frequent Recent Orig.pdf
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Author(s)
Chen, Sidi
Spletter, Maria
Ni, Xiaochun
White, Kevin P.
Luo, Liqun
Long, Manyuan
Date Issued
February 2012
Journal
Cell Reports
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Chen, Sidi, Maria Spletter, Xiaochun Ni, Kevin P. White, Liqun Luo, and Manyuan Long. “Frequent Recent Origination of Brain Genes Shaped the Evolution of Foraging Behavior in Drosophila.” Cell Reports 1, no. 2 (February 2012): 118–132.
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Final published version
Abstract
The evolution of the brain and behavior are coupled puzzles. The genetic bases for brain evolution are widely debated, yet whether newly evolved genes impact the evolution of the brain and behavior is vaguely understood. Here, we show that during recent evolution in Drosophila, new genes have frequently acquired neuronal expression, particularly in the mushroom bodies. Evolutionary signatures combined with expression profiling showed that natural selection influenced the evolution of young genes expressed in the brain, notably in mushroom bodies. Case analyses showed that two young retrogenes are expressed in the olfactory circuit and facilitate foraging behavior. Comparative behavioral analysis revealed divergence in foraging behavior between species. Our data suggest that during adaptive evolution, new genes gain expression in specific brain structures and evolve new functions in neural circuits, which might contribute to the phenotypic evolution of animal behavior.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2011.12.010
