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Mol. Biol. Evol. 20(1):21-29. 2003
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msg002
© 2003 by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. ISSN: 0737-4038

Positive Selection Within Sperm-Egg Adhesion Domains of Fertilin: An ADAM Gene with a Potential Role in Fertilization

Alberto Civetta

Department of Biology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Genes with a role in fertilization show a common pattern of rapid evolution. The role played by positive selection versus lack of selective constraints has been more difficult to establish. One problem arises from attempts to detect selection in an overall gene sequence analysis. I have analyzed the pattern of molecular evolution of fertilin, a gene coding for a heterodimeric sperm protein belonging to the ADAM (A disintegrin and A metalloprotease) gene family. A nonsynonymous to synonymous rate ratio (dN/dS) analysis for different protein domains of fertilin {alpha} and fertilin ß showed dN/dS < 1, suggesting that purifying selection has shaped fertilin's evolution. However, an analysis of the distribution of single positively selected codon sites using phylogentic analysis by maximum likelihood (PAML) showed sites within adhesion domains (disintegrin and cysteine-rich) of fertilin ß evolving under positive selection. The region 3' to the EGF-like domain of fertilin {alpha}, where the transmembrane and cytoplasmic tail regions are supposed to be localized, showed higher dN and dS than any other fertilin {alpha} region. However, it was not possible to identify positively selected codon sites due to ambiguous alignments of the carboxy-end region (ClustalX vs. DiAlign2). When this region was excluded from the PAML analysis, most single positively selected codon sites were concentrated within adhesion domains (cysteine-rich and EGF-like). The use of an ancestral sequence prior to a recent duplication event of fertilin {alpha} among non-Hominidae primates (Macaca, Papio, and Saguinus) revealed that the duplication is partially responsible for masking the detection of positively selected sites within the disintegrin domain. Finally, most ADAM genes with a potential role in sperm maturation and/or fertilization showed significantly higher dN estimates than other ADAM genes.

Key Words: fertilin • gene duplication • fertilization • selection • mammals


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