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Evolutionary divergence of novel open reading frames in cichlids speciation

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Puntambekar, Shraddha 
Newhouse, Rachel 
San-Miguel, Jaime 
Chauhan, Ruchi 
Vernaz, Grégoire 

Abstract

Abstract: Novel open reading frames (nORFs) with coding potential may arise from noncoding DNA. Not much is known about their emergence, functional role, fixation in a population or contribution to adaptive radiation. Cichlids fishes exhibit extensive phenotypic diversification and speciation. Encounters with new environments alone are not sufficient to explain this striking diversity of cichlid radiation because other taxa coexistent with the Cichlidae demonstrate lower species richness. Wagner et al. analyzed cichlid diversification in 46 African lakes and reported that both extrinsic environmental factors and intrinsic lineage-specific traits related to sexual selection have strongly influenced the cichlid radiation, which indicates the existence of unknown molecular mechanisms responsible for rapid phenotypic diversification, such as emergence of novel open reading frames (nORFs). In this study, we integrated transcriptomic and proteomic signatures from two tissues of two cichlids species, identified nORFs and performed evolutionary analysis on these nORF regions. Our results suggest that the time scale of speciation of the two species and evolutionary divergence of these nORF genomic regions are similar and indicate a potential role for these nORFs in speciation of the cichlid fishes.

Description

Funder: DBT-Cambridge Lectureship


Funder: Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award

Keywords

Article, /631/181, /631/208, article

Journal Title

Scientific Reports

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2045-2322

Volume Title

10

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group UK