The Evolution of Gene Expression Plasticity During Adaptation to Salt in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

ABSTRACT: When environmental change is rapid or unpredictable, phenotypic plasticity can facilitate adaptation to new or stressful environments to promote population persistence long enough for adaptive evolution to occur. However, the underlying genetic mechanisms that contribute to plasticity and its role in adaptive evolution are generally unknown. Two main opposing hypotheses dominate-genetic compensation and genetic assimilation. Here, we predominantly find evidence for genetic compensation over assimilation in adapting the freshwater algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to 36 g/L salt environments over 500 generations. More canalized genes in the high-salt (HS) lines displayed a pattern of genetic compensation (63%) fixing near or at the ancestral native expression level, rather than genetic assimi

SUBMITTER: Harry-Paul YY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11534027 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature