Evolution of gene expression and expression plasticity in long-term experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster maintained under constant and variable ethanol stress.

ABSTRACT: Gene expression responds to the environment and can also evolve rapidly in response to altered selection regimes. Little is known, however, about the extent to which evolutionary adaptation to a particular type of stress involves changes in the within-generation ('plastic') responses of gene expression to the stress. We used microarrays to quantify gene expression plasticity in response to ethanol in laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster differing in their history of ethanol exposure. Two populations ('R' populations) were maintained on regular medium, two ('E') were maintained on medium supplemented with ethanol, and two ('M') were maintained in a mixed regime in which half of the population was reared on one medium type, and half on the other, each generation. After more than

SUBMITTER: Yampolsky LY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3654693 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature