Evolving a 24-hr oscillator in budding yeast

eLife

Andrew W Murray¹  Gregg A Wildenberg² 

[1] Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States;Faculty of Arts and Sciences Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States;

关键词: experimental evolution;    circadian rhythm;    yeast;    genome;    evolutionary novelty;    complex trait;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.04875

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

We asked how a new, complex trait evolves by selecting for diurnal oscillations in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We expressed yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) from a yeast promoter and selected for a regular alternation between low and high fluorescence over a 24-hr period. This selection produced changes in cell adhesion rather than YFP expression: clonal populations oscillated between single cells and multicellular clumps. The oscillations are not a response to environmental cues and continue for at least three cycles in a constant environment. We identified eight putative causative mutations in one clone and recreated the evolved phenotype in the ancestral strain. The mutated genes lack obvious relationships to each other, but multiple lineages change from the haploid to the diploid pattern of gene expression. We show that a novel, complex phenotype can evolve by small sets of mutations in genes whose molecular functions appear to be unrelated to each other.

【 授权许可】

Unknown