Molecular Evolution of Drosophila Germline Stem Cell and Neural Stem Cell Regulating Genes

Abstract

Here, we study the molecular evolution of a near complete set of genes that had functional evidence in the regulation of the Drosophila germline and neural stem cell. Some of these genes have previously been shown to be rapidly evolving by positive selection raising the possibility that stem cell genes as a group have elevated signatures of positive selection. Using recent Drosophila comparative genome sequences and population genomic sequences of Drosophila melanogaster, we have investigated both long- and short-term evolution occurring across these two different stem cell systems, and compared them with a carefully chosen random set of genes to represent the background rate of evolution. Our results showed an excess of genes with evidence of a recent selective sweep in both germline and neural stem cells in D. melanogaster. However compared with their control genes, both stem cell systems had no significant excess of genes with long-term recurrent positive selection in D. melanogaster, or across orthologous sequences from the melanogaster group. The evidence of long-term positive selection was limited to a subset of genes with specific functions in both the germline and neural stem cell system.

Keywords: Drosophila; adaptive evolution; germline stem cell; neural stem cell; population genomics; positive selection.

Fig. 1.—

DoS values of various molecular functions within the germline stem cell genes (dark gray) and its control genes (white). Significant difference (P value < 0.05) between stem cell group and its control genes is indicated with a star, whereas numbers in parentheses represent the number of genes examined for each stem cell group.