title: Integrative analysis of young genes, positively selected genes and lncRNAs in the development of Drosophila melanogaster.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Young genes and genes under positive selection commonly contribute to adaptive phenotypic evolution. Early developmental stages are very important for establishing phenotypes, which might be helpful for studying the evolutionary patterns of these rapidly evolving genes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here, we performed a weighted gene co-expression network analysis to identify modules of co-expressed genes at different stages of Drosophila melanogaster development. We found that young genes, including duplicated, orphan, and young lncRNA genes, are significantly enriched among modules associated with specific developmental stages. In addition, genes undergoing rapid amino acid sequence evolution driven by positive selection showed a similar proportion of essentiality with other genes, and enrichment in modules for specific developmental stages.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our integrative analysis revealed important roles for the origin of new genes and rapid amino acid sequence evolution in development that may account for specific phenotype evolution in Drosophila melanogaster.
authors.forename: He-Qun
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Irwin
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China. zhangyp@mail.kiz.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Ya-Ping
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Dong-Dong
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding / Q000235:genetics*; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding