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MBE Advance Access originally published online on May 20, 2009
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2009 26(9):1949-1961; doi:10.1093/molbev/msp107
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

A Recent Adaptive Transposable Element Insertion Near Highly Conserved Developmental Loci in Drosophila melanogaster

Josefa González, J. Michael Macpherson and Dmitri A. Petrov

Department of Biology, Stanford University

E-mail: jgonzalp{at}stanford.edu.

Accepted for publication May 13, 2009.

A recent genomewide screen identified 13 transposable elements that are likely to have been adaptive during or after the spread of Drosophila melanogaster out of Africa. One of these insertions, Bari-Juvenile hormone epoxy hydrolase (Bari-Jheh), was associated with the selective sweep of its flanking neutral variation and with reduction of expression of one of its neighboring genes: Jheh3. Here, we provide further evidence that Bari-Jheh insertion is adaptive. We delimit the extent of the selective sweep and show that Bari-Jheh is the only mutation linked to the sweep. Bari-Jheh also lowers the expression of its other flanking gene, Jheh2. Subtle consequences of Bari-Jheh insertion on life-history traits are consistent with the effects of reduced expression of the Jheh genes. Finally, we analyze molecular evolution of Jheh genes in both the long- and the short-term and conclude that Bari-Jheh appears to be a very rare adaptive event in the history of these genes. We discuss the implications of these findings for the detection and understanding of adaptation.

Key Words: adaptation • transposable elements • Drosophila • purifying selection • life-history traits

Michael Nachman, Associate Editor


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