The role of phenotypic plasticity on the proteome differences between two sympatric marine snail ecotypes adapted to distinct micro-habitats

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Research Article

María Páez de la Cadena¹  Emilio Rolán-Alvarez¹  Mónica Martínez-Fernández¹ 

[1] Departamento de Bioquímica, Genética e Inmunología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Vigo, Campus Universitario, 36310, Vigo, Spain;

关键词: Protein Spot;    Phenotypic Plasticity;    Protein Expression Profile;    Lower Shore;    Shore Level;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2148-10-65

 received in 2009-08-14, accepted in 2010-03-08,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe role of phenotypic plasticity is increasingly being recognized in the field of evolutionary studies. In this paper we look at the role of genetic determination versus plastic response by comparing the protein expression profiles between two sympatric ecotypes adapted to different shore levels and habitats using two-dimensional protein maps.ResultsWe compared qualitative and quantitative differences in protein expression between pools of both ecotypes from different environments (field and laboratory conditions). The results suggested that ecotype differences may affect about 7% of the proteome in agreement with previous studies, and moreover these differences are basically insensitive to environmental changes. Thus, observed differences between wild ecotypes can be mainly attributed to genetic factors rather than phenotypic plasticity.ConclusionsThese results confirm the mechanism of adaptation already proposed in this species and a minor role of phenotypic plasticity in this ecological speciation process. In addition, this study provides a number of interesting protein spots potentially involved in adaptation, and therefore candidates for a future identification.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Martínez-Fernández et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.