Evolutionary history of the medaka long-wavelength sensitive genes and effects of artificial regression by gene loss on behavioural photosensitivity.

ABSTRACT: Tandem gene duplication has led to an expansion of cone-opsin repertoires in many fish, but the resulting functional advantages have only been conjectured without empirical demonstration. Medaka (Oryzias latipes and O. sakaizumii) have eight (two red, three green, two blue, and one violet) cone opsin genes. Absorbance maxima (λ_max) of the proteins vary from 356 nm to 562 nm, but those of the red opsins (long-wavelength sensitive; LWS) are nearly identical, obscuring the necessity of their coexistence. Here, we compared the LWSa and LWSb loci of these sister species and found that the gene duplication occurred long before the latipes-sakaizumii speciation (4-18 million years ago), and the high sequence similarity between the paralogues is the result of at least two events of gene

SUBMITTER: Harada Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6389941 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature