Publication Date:
2008-07-18
Description:
Heritable variation is the raw material for evolutionary change, and understanding its genetic basis is one of the central problems in modern biology. We investigated the genetic basis of a classic phenotypic dimorphism in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Males from many natural isolates deposit a copulatory plug after mating, whereas males from other natural isolates?including the standard wild-type strain (N2 Bristol) that is used in most research laboratories?do not deposit plugs. The copulatory plug is a gelatinous mass that covers the hermaphrodite vulva, and its deposition decreases the mating success of subsequent males. We show that the plugging polymorphism results from the insertion of a retrotransposon into an exon of a novel mucin-like gene, plg-1, whose product is a major structural component of the copulatory plug. The gene is expressed in a subset of secretory cells of the male somatic gonad, and its loss has no evident effects beyond the loss of male mate-guarding. Although C. elegans descends from an obligate-outcrossing, male?female ancestor, it occurs primarily as self-fertilizing hermaphrodites. The reduced selection on male?male competition associated with the origin of hermaphroditism may have permitted the global spread of a loss-of-function mutation with restricted pleiotropy.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597896/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597896/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Palopoli, Michael F -- Rockman, Matthew V -- TinMaung, Aye -- Ramsay, Camden -- Curwen, Stephen -- Aduna, Andrea -- Laurita, Jason -- Kruglyak, Leonid -- P20 RR-016463/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/ -- P50 GM071508/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG004321/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG004321-01/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2008 Aug 21;454(7207):1019-22. doi: 10.1038/nature07171. Epub 2008 Jul 16.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biology, Bowdoin College, 6500 College Station, Brunswick, Maine 04011, USA. mpalopol@bowdoin.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18633349" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Alleles
;
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Animals
;
Caenorhabditis elegans/*genetics/physiology
;
Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins/chemistry/*genetics/metabolism
;
*Copulation
;
Disorders of Sex Development/genetics
;
Gene Expression Regulation
;
Male
;
Mucins/chemistry/*genetics/metabolism
;
*Polymorphism, Genetic
;
Retroelements/genetics
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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