The Evolution of Gene Expression Underlying Vision Loss in Cave Animals.

ABSTRACT: Dissecting the evolutionary genetic processes underlying eye reduction and vision loss in obligate cave-dwelling organisms has been a long-standing challenge in evolutionary biology. Independent vision loss events in related subterranean organisms can provide critical insight into these processes as well as into the nature of convergent loss of complex traits. Advances in evolutionary developmental biology have illuminated the significant role of heritable gene expression variation in the evolution of new forms. Here, we analyze gene expression variation in adult eye tissue across the freshwater crayfish, representing four independent vision-loss events in caves. Species and individual expression patterns cluster by eye function rather than phylogeny, suggesting convergence in transcriptom

SUBMITTER: Stern DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6063295 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature