Mutational Pleiotropy and the Strength of Stabilizing Selection Within and Between Functional Modules of Gene Expression.

ABSTRACT: Variational modules, sets of pleiotropically covarying traits, affect phenotypic evolution, and therefore are predicted to reflect functional modules, such that traits within a variational module also share a common function. Such an alignment of function and pleiotropy is expected to facilitate adaptation by reducing the deleterious effects of mutations, and by allowing coordinated evolution of functionally related sets of traits. Here, we adopt a high-dimensional quantitative genetic approach using a large number of gene expression traits in Drosophila serrata to test whether functional grouping, defined by gene ontology (GO terms), predicts variational modules. Mutational or standing genetic covariance was significantly greater than among randomly grouped sets of genes for 38% of

SUBMITTER: Collet JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5887151 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature