Genome-wide screening for developmental genes in Drosophila reveals important genotype by temperature interaction

MENSCH, J; CARREIRA, V.; FANARA, JJ

Stony Brook, New York, USA

Congreso; Evolution Conference; 2006

Temperature during ontogenesis is one of the most important environmental keys affecting the evolution of developmental traits. Moreover, in organisms with metamorphosis characterized by stage-specific morphological, physiological and behavioural patterns, the effect of developmental temperature is undoubtedly expressed in their plastic genomes. In this context, the time to reach the reproductive age is a quantitative complex trait with adaptive significance known as developmental time (DT). Phenotypic variation of DT results from the segregation of alleles at multiple quantitative trait loci (QTL) with effects that are sensitive to the genetic, sexual and external environments. The aim of this work is to quantify the different phenotypic components of DT variation among co-isogenic single P-element insertional lines screened at different developmental temperatures in order to understand the genetic architecture of developmental time in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. The significant line by temperature interaction observed opens an excellent opportunity for the study of the genetic basis of phenotypic plasticity for an adaptive relevant trait as DT. In this context, and just as examples of contrasting patterns, we observedthat the loss-of-function mutation line for CG14478 gene showed significant DT differences relative to the control only at 25ºC in both sexes. In contrast, the loss-of-function mutation line for Hsp27 gene showed high significant DT differences at 17ºC in both sexes but no differences were observed at 25ºC.In this sense, our results provide strong evidences for candidate temperature plasticity genes as important components of the genetic architecture of DT.