a spectrum of pleiotropic consequences in development due to changes in a regulatory pathway光谱的多效性的后果,由于监管变化发展途径.pdfVIP

A Spectrum of Pleiotropic Consequences in Development Due to Changes in a Regulatory Pathway 1,2,3 4 1,3 Ana E. Escalante *, Sumiko Inouye , Michael Travisano ´ 1 Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America, 2 Departamento de Ecologıa de la Biodiversidad, ´ ´ ´ ´ Instituto de Ecologıa, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, 3 Biotechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America, 4 Department of Biochemistry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America Abstract Regulatory evolution has frequently been proposed as the primary mechanism driving morphological evolution. This is because regulatory changes may be less likely to cause deleterious pleiotropic effects than changes in protein structure, and consequently have a higher likelihood to be beneficial. We examined the potential for mutations in trans acting regulatory elements to drive phenotypic change, and the predictability of such change. We approach these questions by the study of the phenotypic scope and size of controlled alteration in the developmental network of the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. We perturbed the expression of a key regulatory gene (fruA) by constructing independent in-frame deletions of four trans acting regulatory loci that modify its expression. While mutants retained developmental capability, the deletions caused changes in the expression of fruA and a dramatic shortening of time required for completion of dev