Multifactorial processes underlie parallel opsin loss in neotropical bats
- University of California, Los Angeles, United States
- Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom
- Stony Brook University, United States
- University of Illinois, United States
- Harvard University, United States
- University of California, Merced, United States
Abstract
The loss of previously adaptive traits is typically linked to relaxation in selection, yet the molecular steps leading to such repeated losses are rarely known. Molecular studies of loss have tended to focus on gene sequences alone, but overlooking other aspects of protein expression might underestimate phenotypic diversity. Insights based almost solely on opsin gene evolution, for instance, have made mammalian color vision a textbook example of phenotypic loss. We address this gap by investigating retention and loss of opsin genes, transcripts and proteins across ecologically diverse noctilionoid bats. We find multiple, independent losses of short-wave sensitive opsins. Mismatches between putatively functional DNA sequences, mRNA transcripts, and proteins implicate transcriptional and post-transcriptional processes in the ongoing loss of S-opsins in some noctilionoid bats. Our results provide a snapshot of evolution in progress during phenotypic trait loss, and suggest vertebrate visual phenotypes cannot always be predicted from genotypes alone.
Data availability
Sequencing data have been deposited in GenBank in the Nucleotide Database. The accession numbers are as follows: RHO: MK209460 - MK209505; OPN1LW: MK209506 - MK209551; OPN1SW: MK209552 - MK209592. The GenBank numbers for the OPN1SW PCR sequences are MK248618 - MK248630. Gene alignments are available via Dryad (http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.456569k).
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Gene alignment data from Multifactorial processes underlie parallel opsin loss in neotropical batsDryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.456569k.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Science Foundation (1442142)
- Kalina TJ Davies
- Laurel R Yohe
- Stephen J Rossiter
National Science Foundation (1442314)
- Alexa Sadier
- Kun Yun
- Karen E Sears
National Science Foundation (1442278)
- Paul Donat
- Brandon P Hedrick
- Elizabeth R Dumont
European Research Council (310482)
- Kalina TJ Davies
- Stephen J Rossiter
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols 14199 at UIUC and 2017-093 at UCLA. Every effort was made to minimize suffering.
Copyright
© 2018, Sadier et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Multifactorial processes underlie parallel opsin loss in neotropical bats
eLife 7:e37412.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.37412
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