Adaptive evolution in rodent seminal vesicle secretion proteins.

ABSTRACT: Proteins involved in reproductive fitness have evolved unusually rapidly across diverse groups of organisms. These reproductive proteins show unusually high rates of amino acid substitutions, suggesting that the proteins have been subject to positive selection. We sought to identify seminal fluid proteins experiencing adaptive evolution because such proteins are often involved in sperm competition, host immunity to pathogens, and manipulation of female reproductive physiology and behavior. We performed an evolutionary screen of the mouse prostate transcriptome for genes with elevated evolutionary rates between mouse and rat. We observed that secreted rodent prostate proteins evolve approximately twice as fast as nonsecreted proteins, remarkably similar to findings in the primate prostate a

SUBMITTER: Karn RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2727389 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature