Genetics. Published Articles Ahead of Print: August 24, 2007, Copyright © 2007
doi:10.1534/genetics.107.077503


A more recent version of this article appeared on October 1, 2007.

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Adaptive Evolution of Recently Duplicated Accessory Gland Protein Genes in Desert Drosophila

Bradley Jon Wagstaff 1* and David Begun 2

1 Tulane University
2 University of Calfornia, Davis

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bwagstaf{at}tulane.edu.

Submitted on June 12, 2007
Revised on July 24, 2007
Accepted on 10 August 2007


Abstract

The relationship between animal mating system variation and patterns of protein polymorphism and divergence is poorly understood. Drosophila provides an excellent system to address this issue, as there is abundant interspecific mating system variation. For example, compared to D. melanogaster subgroup species, repleta group species have higher remating rates, delayed sexual maturity and several other interesting differences. We previously showed that accessory gland protein genes (Acps) of Drosophila mojavensis and D. arizonae evolve more rapidly than Acps in the D. melanogaster subgroup and that adaptive Acp protein evolution is likely more common in D. mojavensis/D. arizonae than in D. melanogaster/D. simulans. These findings are consistent with the idea that greater postcopulatory selection results in more adaptive evolution of seminal fluid proteins in repleta group flies. Here we report another interesting evolutionary difference between repleta group and D. melanogaster subgroup Acps. Acp gene duplications are present in D. melanogaster, but their high sequence divergence indicates that the fixation rate of duplicated Acps has been low in this lineage. Here we report that D. mojavensis and D. arizonae genomes contain several very young duplicated Acps and that these Acps have experienced very rapid, adaptive protein divergence. We propose that rapid remating of female desert Drosophila generates selection for continuous diversification of the male Acp complement to improve male fertilization potential. Thus, mating system variation may be associated with adaptive protein divergence as well as duplication of Acps in Drosophila.

Key Words: Drosophila, accessory gland proteins, adaptive evolution, gene duplication, mating




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