Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(3):892; doi:10.1093/molbev/msm027
Published by Oxford University Press 2007.
The Transcriptomics of Ecological Convergence between 2 Limnetic Coregonine Fishes (Salmonidae)
N. Derome and L. BernatchezMol. Biol. Evol. 23: 2370–2378. 2006
The following paragraph should have appeared as paragraph 4 under the Discussion:
Convergent evolution in gene expression of the dwarf whitefish towards that observed in the cisco also involved gamma-crystallin, a gene that is potentially associated with muscle energetic metabolism. The crystallin protein family contains enzymes closely related to and highly homologous to glycolytic enzymes, such as lactate dehydrogenase or aldolase (Jones et al. 1999). More generally, crystallin proteins have retained their enzymatic properties in vertebrates (Piatigorsky 2003). However, gamma-crystallin function is still poorly understood (Wistow et al. 2005
). Interestingly, protein pattern identification, using the PROSITE tool provided by the European Bioinformatic Institute, revealed that the gamma-crystallin variant includes three potential phosphorylation sites (casein kinase II, Protein kinase C, and tyrosine kinase, data not shown). Moreover, the closest zebrafish variant of gamma-crystallin (77% of nucleotide similarity) presents the same three potential phosphorylation sites, and its molecular function is related to both catalysis and calcium binding, according to the ZFIN database (http://zfin.org). Therefore, it is plausible that muscle transcripts that hybridized to the gamma-crystallin cDNA in higher proportions, both in dwarf whitefish and cisco relative to the normal whitefish ecotype were either glycolytic enzyme transcripts (Derome, Duchesne, Bernatchez 2006) or binding protein, associated to the muscle calcium turn-over. Both of these functions are related to an enhanced swimming activity, which is highly heritable behavioral trait in lake whitefish (Rogers, Bernatchez 2005). Consequently, over-expression of either catalytic enzymes or calcium binding protein which are highly homologous to gamma-crystallins in two distinct active limnetic coregonine species further supports the hypothesis that these proteins are very likely associated with a genetically determined, increased swimming activity. This, in turn, further supports the hypothesis that directional selection has played a determinant role in the phenotypic evolution of both cisco and dwarf whitefish towards exploiting the limnetic niche, and has been acting on the same genes by modulating their regulation upward in both species.
The publisher regrets the errors.
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Wistow G, Wyatt K, David L, Gao C, et al. (10 co-authors). (2005) gammaN-crystallin and the evolution of the betagamma-crystallin superfamily in vertebrates. Febs. J 272:2276–2291.[CrossRef][Medline]
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