title: Expression Divergence of Duplicate Genes in the Protein Kinase Superfamily in Pacific Oyster.
abstract: Gene duplication has been proposed to serve as the engine of evolutionary innovation. It is well recognized that eukaryotic genomes contain a large number of duplicated genes that evolve new functions or expression patterns. However, in mollusks, the evolutionary mechanisms underlying the divergence and the functional maintenance of duplicate genes remain little understood. In the present study, we performed a comprehensive analysis of duplicate genes in the protein kinase superfamily using whole genome and transcriptome data for the Pacific oyster. A total of 64 duplicated gene pairs were identified based on a phylogenetic approach and the reciprocal best BLAST method. By analyzing gene expression from RNA-seq data from 69 different developmental and stimuli-induced conditions (nine tissues, 38 developmental stages, eight dry treatments, seven heat treatments, and seven salty treatments), we found that expression patterns were significantly correlated for a number of duplicate gene pairs, suggesting the conservation of regulatory mechanisms following divergence. Our analysis also identified a subset of duplicate gene pairs with very high expression divergence, indicating that these gene pairs may have been subjected to transcriptional subfunctionalization or neofunctionalization after the initial duplication events. Further analysis revealed a significant correlation between expression and sequence divergence (as revealed by synonymous or nonsynonymous substitution rates) under certain conditions. Taken together, these results provide evidence for duplicate gene sequence and expression divergence in the Pacific oyster, accompanying its adaptation to harsh environments. Our results provide new insights into the evolution of duplicate genes and their expression levels in the Pacific oyster.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, Shandong, China.
authors.forename: Dahai
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Dennis C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.affiliation: Tropical Crops Genetic Resources Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Danzhou, Hainan, China.
authors.forename: Xinmin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, Shandong, China.
authors.forename: Guang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Liuyang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Pacific oyster; RNA-seq; duplicate genes; protein kinase superfamily