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MBE Advance Access published online on April 27, 2009
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msp088
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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 Article

Positive selection has driven the evolution of the Drosophila Insulin-like Receptor (InR) at different time scales

Sara Guirao-Rico and Montserrat Aguadé

Departament de Genètica, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Corresponding author: Montserrat Aguadé, Departament de Genètica, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain, Diagonal, 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain, Telephone: +34-934021493, Fax: +34-934034420, e-mail address: maguade{at}ub.edu

Received for publication February 12, 2009. Revision received March 31, 2009. Accepted for publication April 11, 2009.

The highly conserved insulin signaling pathway influences very diverse processes including intermediary metabolism, reproduction, aging and growth. The first pathway component is the insulin receptor that upon insulin binding triggers the signal-transduction cascade. Its variation, like that of other pathway components, might affect therefore many organismal traits. Variation at the Insulin-like receptor (InR) gene was surveyed both within Drosophila melanogaster and between species across the Drosophila phylogeny. In D. melanogaster, the level and pattern of variation at the ~8-Kb region surveyed did not provide any indication of a recent selective event in this region. Maximum likelihood (ML) analyses revealed the past action of purifying selection acting differentially both across the phylogeny and along the studied gene. Moreover, the ML analyses and the McDonald and Kreitman test revealed the footprint of positive selection driving amino acid changes to fixation in the branch separating the Sophophora and the Drosophila subgenera, and in the D. melanogaster lineage, respectively. The oldest selective events could have affected either the insulin binding or the signal transduction capacities of the receptor, whereas mutations affecting signal transduction would seem to underlie the more recent events.

Key Words: Drosophila • nucleotide polymorphism • insulin receptor • positive selection


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