Repeated Cis-Regulatory Tuning of a Metabolic Bottleneck Gene during Evolution.

ABSTRACT: Repeated evolutionary events imply underlying genetic constraints that can make evolutionary mechanisms predictable. Morphological traits are thought to evolve frequently through cis-regulatory changes because these mechanisms bypass constraints in pleiotropic genes that are reused during development. In contrast, the constraints acting on metabolic traits during evolution are less well studied. Here we show how a metabolic bottleneck gene has repeatedly adopted similar cis-regulatory solutions during evolution, likely due to its pleiotropic role integrating flux from multiple metabolic pathways. Specifically, the genes encoding phosphoglucomutase activity (PGM1/PGM2), which connect GALactose catabolism to glycolysis, have gained and lost direct regulation by the transcription factor Gal4

SUBMITTER: Kuang MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6063270 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature