Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea

The unique life-history characteristics of North Atlantic catadromous eels have long intrigued evolutionary biologists, especially with respect to mechanisms that could explain their persistence as two ecologically very similar but reproductively and geographically distinct species. Differential dev...

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Main Authors:	Bernatchez, Louis, St-Cyr, Jérôme, Normandeau, Eric, Maes, Gregory E, Als, Thomas D, Kalujnaia, Svetlana, Cramb, Gordon, Castonguay, Martin, Hansen, Michael M
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2011
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3287341/

id	pubmed-3287341
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-32873412012-03-05 Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea Bernatchez, Louis St-Cyr, Jérôme Normandeau, Eric Maes, Gregory E Als, Thomas D Kalujnaia, Svetlana Cramb, Gordon Castonguay, Martin Hansen, Michael M Original Research The unique life-history characteristics of North Atlantic catadromous eels have long intrigued evolutionary biologists, especially with respect to mechanisms that could explain their persistence as two ecologically very similar but reproductively and geographically distinct species. Differential developmental schedules during young larval stages have commonly been hypothesized to represent such a key mechanism. We performed a comparative analysis of gene expression by means of microarray experiments with American and European eel leptocephali collected in the Sargasso Sea in order to test the alternative hypotheses of (1) differential timing of gene expression regulation during early development versus (2) species-specific differences in expression of particular genes. Our results provide much stronger support for the former hypothesis since no gene showed consistent significant differences in expression levels between the two species. In contrast, 146 genes showed differential timings of expression between species, although the observed expression level differences between the species were generally small. Consequently, species-specific gene expression regulation seems to play a minor role in species differentiation. Overall, these results show that the basis of the early developmental divergence between the American and European eel is probably influenced by differences in the timing of gene expression regulation for genes involved in a large array of biological functions. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2011-12 /pmc/articles/PMC3287341/ /pubmed/22393514 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.27 Text en © 2011 The Authors. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Bernatchez, Louis St-Cyr, Jérôme Normandeau, Eric Maes, Gregory E Als, Thomas D Kalujnaia, Svetlana Cramb, Gordon Castonguay, Martin Hansen, Michael M
spellingShingle	Bernatchez, Louis St-Cyr, Jérôme Normandeau, Eric Maes, Gregory E Als, Thomas D Kalujnaia, Svetlana Cramb, Gordon Castonguay, Martin Hansen, Michael M Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea
author_facet	Bernatchez, Louis St-Cyr, Jérôme Normandeau, Eric Maes, Gregory E Als, Thomas D Kalujnaia, Svetlana Cramb, Gordon Castonguay, Martin Hansen, Michael M
author_sort	Bernatchez, Louis
title	Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea
title_short	Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea
title_full	Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea
title_fullStr	Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea
title_full_unstemmed	Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea
title_sort	differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two anguilla eel species in the sargasso sea
description	The unique life-history characteristics of North Atlantic catadromous eels have long intrigued evolutionary biologists, especially with respect to mechanisms that could explain their persistence as two ecologically very similar but reproductively and geographically distinct species. Differential developmental schedules during young larval stages have commonly been hypothesized to represent such a key mechanism. We performed a comparative analysis of gene expression by means of microarray experiments with American and European eel leptocephali collected in the Sargasso Sea in order to test the alternative hypotheses of (1) differential timing of gene expression regulation during early development versus (2) species-specific differences in expression of particular genes. Our results provide much stronger support for the former hypothesis since no gene showed consistent significant differences in expression levels between the two species. In contrast, 146 genes showed differential timings of expression between species, although the observed expression level differences between the species were generally small. Consequently, species-specific gene expression regulation seems to play a minor role in species differentiation. Overall, these results show that the basis of the early developmental divergence between the American and European eel is probably influenced by differences in the timing of gene expression regulation for genes involved in a large array of biological functions.
publisher	Blackwell Publishing Ltd
publishDate	2011
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3287341/
_version_	1611508468378763264

Differential timing of gene expression regulation between leptocephali of the two Anguilla eel species in the Sargasso Sea

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