Evolution of gene duplication and adaptive capacity; experimental evolution of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

• Project/Area Number: 26650153
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Ecology/Environment
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Kawata Masakado 東北大学, 生命科学研究科, 教授 (90204734)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): MAKINO TAKASHI 東北大学, 大学院生命科学研究科, 准教授 (20443442)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000)
• Keywords: 重複遺伝子 / 適応力 / 進化実験 / 遺伝子重複 / 変動環境 / 遺伝子数 / 酵母

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We conducted evolutionary experiments using Saccharomyces cerevisiae to test a hypothesis that number of duplicated genes increased under unpredictable environmental fluctuations and organisms with larger number of duplicated genes have high adaptive capacity. Th results showed that under randomly fluctuated environmental variable, Saccharomyces cerevisiae evolved to have larger number of newly acquired duplicated genes than those under constant environments during 500 generations of evolutionary experiments. The results also showed that for evolved Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the fitness from 450th to 500th generation increased with the increased number of newly acquired duplicated genes. These results support the hypothesis.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] Natural selection in a population of Drosophila melanogaster explained by changes in gene expression caused by sequence variation in core promoter regions. (2016)
  • Author(s): Sato, P. M.,T. Makino and M. Kawata
  • Journal Title: BMC Evolutionary Biology Volume: 16 Issue: 1 Pages: 35-35
  • DOI: 10.1186/s12862-016-0606-3
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] Contribution of non-ohnologous duplicated genes to high habitat variability in mammals (2014)
  • Author(s): Tamate C.S., Kawata M., Makino T.
  • Journal Title: Molecular Biology and Evolution Volume: 31 Issue: 7 Pages: 1779-1786
  • DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msu128
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access / Acknowledgement Compliant
• [Journal Article] A worldwide survey of genome sequence variation provides insight into the evolutionary history of the honeybee Apis mellifera (2014)
  • Author(s): Wallberg, A., F. Han, G. Wellhagen, B. Dahle, M. Kawata, N. Haddad, Z. L. P. Simoes, M. H. Allsopp, I. Kandemir, P. D. la Rua, C.W. Pirk, and M. T. Webster
  • Journal Title: Nature Genetics Volume: 46 Issue: 10 Pages: 1081-1088
  • DOI: 10.1038/ng.3077
  • Peer Reviewed