Adaptive selection and coevolution at the proteins of the Polycomb repressive complexes in Drosophila.

ABSTRACT: Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are important epigenetic regulatory proteins that modulate the chromatin state through posttranslational histone modifications. These interacting proteins form multimeric complexes that repress gene expression. Thus, PcG proteins are expected to evolve coordinately, which might be reflected in their phylogenetic trees by concordant episodes of positive selection and by a correlation in evolutionary rates. In order to detect these signals of coevolution, the molecular evolution of 17 genes encoding the subunits of five Polycomb repressive complexes has been analyzed in the Drosophila genus. The observed distribution of divergence differs substantially among and along proteins. Indeed, CAF1 is uniformly conserved, whereas only the established protein domains are

SUBMITTER: Calvo-Martin JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4806890 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature