Rapid turnover of life-cycle-related genes in the brown algae.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Sexual life cycles in eukaryotes involve a cyclic alternation between haploid and diploid phases. While most animals possess a diploid life cycle, many plants and algae alternate between multicellular haploid (gametophyte) and diploid (sporophyte) generations. In many algae, gametophytes and sporophytes are independent and free-living and may present dramatic phenotypic differences. The same shared genome can therefore be subject to different, even conflicting, selection pressures during each of the life cycle generations. Here, we analyze the nature and extent of genome-wide, generation-biased gene expression in four species of brown algae with contrasting levels of dimorphism between life cycle generations.

Results

We show that the proportion of the transcriptom

SUBMITTER: Lipinska AP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6374913 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature