Evolutionary and functional insights into the mechanism underlying high-altitude adaptation of deer mouse hemoglobin.

ABSTRACT: Adaptive modifications of heteromeric proteins may involve genetically based changes in single subunit polypeptides or parallel changes in multiple genes that encode distinct, interacting subunits. Here we investigate these possibilities by conducting a combined evolutionary and functional analysis of duplicated globin genes in natural populations of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) that are adapted to different elevational zones. A multilocus analysis of nucleotide polymorphism and linkage disequilibrium revealed that high-altitude adaptation of deer mouse hemoglobin involves parallel functional differentiation at multiple unlinked gene duplicates: two alpha-globin paralogs on chromosome 8 and two beta-globin paralogs on chromosome 1. Differences in O(2)-binding affinity of the alternat

SUBMITTER: Storz JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2732835 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature