The evolution and adaptive potential of transcriptional variation in sticklebacks--signatures of selection and widespread heritability.

ABSTRACT: Evidence implicating differential gene expression as a significant driver of evolutionary novelty continues to accumulate, but our understanding of the underlying sources of variation in expression, both environmental and genetic, is wanting. Heritability in particular may be underestimated when inferred from genetic mapping studies, the predominant "genetical genomics" approach to the study of expression variation. Such uncertainty represents a fundamental limitation to testing for adaptive evolution at the transcriptomic level. By studying the inheritance of expression levels in 10,495 genes (10,527 splice variants) in a threespine stickleback pedigree consisting of 563 individuals, half of which were subjected to a thermal treatment, we show that 74-98% of transcripts exhibit significan

SUBMITTER: Leder EH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4327155 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature