title: Mutational mechanisms, phylogeny, and evolution of a repetitive region within a clock gene of Drosophila melanogaster.
abstract: The D. melanogaster clock gene period (per) is an internally repetitive gene encoding a tandem array of Thr-Gly codons that are highly polymorphic in length in European natural populations. The two major length variants, (Thr-Gly)20 and (Thr-Gly)17, show a highly significant latitudinal cline. In this study we present the complete sequence of the Thr-Gly region of 91 individuals from 6 natural populations of D. melanogaster, 5 from Europe and 1 from North Africa. We further characterized these 91 individuals for polymorphic sites in two other regions, one upstream and one downstream of the Thr-Gly repeat. We used the haplotypic combinations of Thr-Gly allele with flanking markers in an attempt to identify the mechanisms involved in the evolution of the D. melanogaster Thr-Gly region and to infer the phylogenetic relationship existing among the Thr-Gly alleles. We observe evidence for both intra- and interallelic mutational mechanisms, including replication slippage, unequal crossing-over, and gene conversion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, UK.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rosato
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Peixoto
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gallippi
authors.forename: C P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Kyriacou
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Costa
mesh_terms: D000352:Africa, Northern; D000483:Alleles; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild; D001483:Base Sequence; D001683:Biological Clocks / Q000235:genetics*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D005060:Europe; D005998:Glycine / Q000235:genetics; D006239:Haplotypes; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016296:Mutagenesis; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D056950:Period Circadian Proteins; D010802:Phylogeny; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D013912:Threonine / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; C539040:PER protein, Drosophila; D056950:Period Circadian Proteins; D013912:Threonine; D005998:Glycine