Evolution of Gene Expression Across Species and Specialized Zooids in Siphonophora
bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.30.454354; this version posted August 1, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Evolution of gene expression across species and specialized zooids in Siphonophora Catriona Munro1,2, Felipe Zapata3, Mark Howison4, Stefan Siebert5, Casey W. Dunn6 1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA 2 Current address: Collège de France, PSL Research University, CNRS, Inserm, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, 75005 Paris, France 3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA 4 Research Improving People’s Lives (RIPL), Providence, RI, USA 5 Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California, Davis, California, 95616, USA 6 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA Abstract Background Siphonophores are complex colonial animals, consisting of asexually-produced bodies (called zooids) that are functionally specialized for specific tasks, including feeding, swimming, and sexual reproduction. Though this extreme functional specialization has captivated biologists for generations, its genomic underpinnings remain unknown. We use RNA-seq to investigate gene expression patterns in five zooids and one specialized tissue (pneumatophore) across seven siphonophore species. Analyses of gene expression across species present several challenges, including identification of comparable expression changes on gene trees with complex histories of speciation, duplication, and loss. Here, we conduct three analyses of expression. First, we examine gene expression within species. Then, we conduct classical analyses examining expression patterns between species.
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