Signatures of selection in loci governing major colour patterns in Heliconius butterflies and related species.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Protein-coding change is one possible genetic mechanism underlying the evolution of adaptive wing colour pattern variation in Heliconius butterflies. Here we determine whether 38 putative genes within two major Heliconius patterning loci, HmYb and HmB, show evidence of positive selection. Ratios of nonsynonymous to synonymous nucleotide changes (ω) were used to test for selection, as a means of identifying candidate genes within each locus that control wing pattern.

Results

Preliminary analyses using 454 transcriptome and Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC) sequences from three Heliconius species highlighted a cluster of genes within each region showing relatively higher rates of sequence evolution. Other genes within the region appear to be highly constrained,

SUBMITTER: Wu GC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3001726 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature