Publication Date:
2014-04-12
Description:
Primordial germ cell (PGC) specification occurs either by induction from pluripotent cells (epigenesis) or by a cell-autonomous mechanism mediated by germ plasm (preformation). Among vertebrates, epigenesis is basal, whereas germ plasm has evolved convergently across lineages and is associated with greater speciation. We compared protein-coding sequences of vertebrate species that employ preformation with their sister taxa that use epigenesis and demonstrate that genes evolve more rapidly in species containing germ plasm. Furthermore, differences in rates of evolution appear to cause phylogenetic incongruence in protein-coding sequence comparisons between vertebrate taxa. Our results support the hypothesis that germ plasm liberates constraints on somatic development and that enhanced evolvability drives the evolution of germ plasm.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Evans, Teri -- Wade, Christopher M -- Chapman, Frank A -- Johnson, Andrew D -- Loose, Matthew -- G1100025/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom -- Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Apr 11;344(6180):200-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1249325.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2UH, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24723612" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amphibians
;
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Cytoplasm/*physiology
;
Germ Cells/*physiology
;
Phylogeny
;
Vertebrates/*classification/*genetics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
