Publication Date:
2007-06-30
Description:
Circadian and other natural clock-like endogenous rhythms may have evolved to anticipate regular temporal changes in the environment. We report that a mutation in the circadian clock gene timeless in Drosophila melanogaster has arisen and spread by natural selection relatively recently in Europe. We found that, when introduced into different genetic backgrounds, natural and artificial alleles of the timeless gene affect the incidence of diapause in response to changes in light and temperature. The natural mutant allele alters an important life history trait that may enhance the fly's adaptation to seasonal conditions.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Tauber, Eran -- Zordan, Mauro -- Sandrelli, Federica -- Pegoraro, Mirko -- Osterwalder, Nicolo -- Breda, Carlo -- Daga, Andrea -- Selmin, Alessandro -- Monger, Karen -- Benna, Clara -- Rosato, Ezio -- Kyriacou, Charalambos P -- Costa, Rodolfo -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2007 Jun 29;316(5833):1895-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17600215" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Alleles
;
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Animals
;
Base Sequence
;
Circadian Rhythm/genetics
;
Drosophila Proteins/*genetics/physiology
;
Drosophila melanogaster/*genetics/*physiology
;
Europe
;
Evolution, Molecular
;
Female
;
Geography
;
Haplotypes
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Mutation
;
*Photoperiod
;
Phylogeny
;
Polymorphism, Genetic
;
Protein Isoforms/genetics/physiology
;
Reproduction
;
*Seasons
;
*Selection, Genetic
;
Temperature
;
Transformation, Genetic
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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