Abstract
Some mammals breed throughout the year, while others breed only at certain times of year. These differences in reproductive behavior can be explained by evolution. We identified positively-selected genes in two sets of species with different degrees of relatedness including seasonal and non-seasonal breeding species, using branch-site models. After stringent filtering by sum of pairs scoring, we revealed that more genes underwent positive selection in seasonal compared with non-seasonal breeding species. Positively-selected genes were verified by cDNA mapping of the positive sites with the corresponding cDNA sequences. The design of the evolutionary analysis can effectively lower the false-positive rate and thus identify valid positive genes. Validated, positively-selected genes, including CGA, DNAH1, INVS, and CD151, were related to reproductive behaviors such as spermatogenesis and cell proliferation in non-seasonal breeding species. Genes in seasonal breeding species, including THRAP3, TH1L, and CMTM6, may be related to the evolution of sperm and the circadian rhythm system. Identification of these positively-selected genes might help to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying seasonal and non-seasonal reproductive behaviors.
Highlights
The environment can influence gene evolution and animal behaviors, including reproduction-related behaviors
After alignment using PRANK, 10,918 gene orthologs in the Distant-Species set and 12,485 in the Close-Species set were tested for positive selection signals using the codeML program in the PAML package [4], with the modified branch-site model [5]
The evolutionary analysis was designed to reduce the incidence of false-positive sites by sum of pairs (SP) filtering and cDNA mapping
Summary
The environment can influence gene evolution and animal behaviors, including reproduction-related behaviors. Some mammals can breed throughout the year, while others only breed successfully at certain times of year. Such animals are defined as non-seasonal and seasonal breeding species, respectively. Temperature, and food supply can all influence the PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0126736. Selected Genes in Seasonal and Non-Seasonal Breeding (SW20130802). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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