The stars and stripes of animal bodies: evolution of regulatory elements mediating pigment and bristle patterns in Drosophila.
Evolution has generated enormous morphological diversity in animals and one of the genetic processes that might have contributed to this is evolution of the cis-regulatory sequences responsible for the temporal and spatial expression of genes regulating embryonic development. This could be particularly relevant to pleiotropic genes with multiple independently acting regulatory modules. Loss or gain of modules enables altered expression without loss of other functions. Here I focus on recent studies correlating differences in morphological traits between related species of Drosophila to changes in cis-regulatory sequences. They show that ancestral regulatory modules have evolved to mediate different transcriptional outputs and suggest that evolution of cis-regulatory sequences might reflect a general mechanism driving evolutionary change.
Simpson
Pat
P
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. pas49@cam.ac.uk
D000818:Animals; D019521:Body Patterning; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008957:Models, Genetic; D050436:Regulatory Elements, Transcriptional; D013045:Species Specificity; D013909:Thorax / Q000196:embryology / Q000378:metabolism; D013997:Time Factors; D014921:Wings, Animal
D019476:Insect Proteins