Molecular Population Genetics of the Distal Portion of the X Chromosome in Drosophila: Evidence for Genetic Hitchhiking of the Yellow-Achaete Region

We have estimated DNA sequence variation and differentiation within and between Drosophila melanogaster and its sibling species, Drosophila simulans, using six-cutter restriction site variation at yellow-achaete (y-ac), phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (Pgd), and period (per). These three gene regions are of varying distance from the telomere of the X chromosome and range from very low to moderate rates of recombination in D. melanogaster. According to Tajima's test of neutrality, the Pgd region has been influenced by balancing selection in D. melanogaster. This is consistent with previous data suggesting the allozyme polymorphism at this locus is visible to selection. The Hudson, Kreitman, Aguadé test of neutrality reveals a significant departure from neutrality for the y-ac region compared to the per or rosy regions in D. simulans. There is also a significant departure for the y-ac region compared to the Adh 5' flanking region in D. melanogaster. In both species the departure appears to be due to reduced variation at y-ac compared to that expected from divergence between D. simulans and D. melanogaster. We conclude that recent hitchhiking associated with the selective fixation of one or more advantageous mutants in the y-ac region is the best explanation for reduced variation at y-ac.     

High nucleotide sequence variation in a region of low recombination in Drosophila simulans is consistent with the background selection model

We surveyed nucleotide sequence variation at glucose dehydrogenase (Gld), in a region of low recombination on chromosome 3R, from a population sample of Drosophila simulans. The levels of nucleotide variation were surprisingly high. There was no departure from the expectation of a neutral model for the level of polymorphism, indicating no evidence of a selective sweep in this region. There was a significant deficiency of singleton polymorphisms according to the Fu and Li test, although Tajima and Hudson, Kreitman, and Aguade (HKA) tests do not provide evidence of a significant elevation of variation due to balancing selection. Genetic map data for the D. simulans third chromosome were used to calculate expected values of pi for Gld under a current model of background selection, varying the values for the parameter sh (selection coefficient against deleterious mutations). We show that the recombinational landscape of D. simulans is sufficiently different from that of D. melanogaster that we expect higher variation under the background selection model, even when effective population sizes are assumed to be equal. The data for Gld were tested against the predictions using computer simulations of the distribution of the number of segregating sites conditioned on pi. Background selection alone can explain our observations as long as sh is larger than 0.005 and species-level effective population size is assumed to be several- fold larger than in D. melanogaster. Alternatively, the deleterious mutation rate may be smaller in D. simulans, or balancing selection may be acting nearby, thereby reducing the effect of background selection.      

Sperm Size Evolution in Drosophila: Inter- and Intraspecific Analysis

Numerous reports were devoted to the variation of sperm length in relation to sperm competition amongst species. However, studies on intraspecific variations of sperm size are very scarce and the number of sperm measured, very limited. This paper investigates within-individual, between-individual and between-population variation of sperm length in the two cosmopolitan species, D. simulans and D. melanogaster. Sperm length distributions are completely discriminated against with these two species, with the mean values equal to 1.121 +/- 0.002 and 1.989 +/- 0.008 mm, respectively. Results of intraspecific variation show a contrasting pattern between the two species. The mode of sperm length distributions is much less variable in D. simulans than in D. melanogaster. The sperm size divergence is unaffected whenever the two species are in sympatry (tested at 'Evolution Canyon', Mount Carmel, Israel) or in allopatry, but the two species react differentially to abiotic local factors. D. melanogaster, in contrast to D. simulans, shows a clinal pattern in sperm size associated with drought. We discussed this pattern in relation to the potential role of sperm length in the ongoing process of non-random mating and incipient sympatric speciation observed in this locality in D. melanogaster.     

A Reanalysis of Protein Polymorphism in Drosophila Melanogaster, D. Simulans, D. Sechellia and D. Mauritiana: Effects of Population Size and Selection

Comparison of synonymous and nonsynonymous variation/substitution within and between species at individual genes has become a widely used general approach to detect the effect of selection versus drift. The sibling species group comprised of two cosmopolitan (Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans) and two island (Drosophila mauritiana and Drosophila sechellia) species has become a model system for such studies. In the present study we reanalyzed the pattern of protein variation in these species, and the results were compared against the patterns of nucleotide variation obtained from the literature, mostly available for melanogaster and simulans. We have mainly focused on the contrasting patterns of variation between the cosmopolitan pair. The results can be summarized as follows: (1) As expected the island species D. mauritiana and D. sechellia showed much less variation than the cosmopolitan species D. melanogaster and D. simulans. (2) The chromosome 2 showed significantly less variation than chromosome 3 and X in all four species which may indicate effects of past selective sweeps. (3) In contrast to its overall low variation, D. mauritiana showed highest variation for X-linked loci which may indicate introgression from its sibling, D. simulans. (4) An average population of D. simulans was as heterozygous as that of D. melanogaster (14.4% v.s. 13.9%) but the difference was large and significant when considering only polymorphic loci (37.2% v.s. 26.1%). (5) The species-wise pooled populations of these two species showed similar results (all loci = 18.3% v.s. 20.0%, polymorphic loci = 47.2% v.s. 37.6%). (6) An average population of D. simulans had more low-frequency alleles than D. melanogaster, and the D. simulans alleles were found widely distributed in all populations whereas the D. melanogaster alleles were limited to local populations. As a results of this, pooled populations of D. melanogaster showed more polymorphic loci than those of D. simulans (48.0% v.s. 32.0%) but the difference was reduced when the comparison was made on the basis of an average population (29.1% v.s. 21.4%). (7) While the allele frequency distributions within populations were nonsignificant in both D. melanogaster and D. simulans, melanogaster had fewer than simulans, but more than expected from the neutral theory, low frequency alleles. (8) Diallelic loci with the second allele with a frequency less than 20% had similar frequencies in all four species but those with the second allele with a frequency higher than 20% were limited to only melanogaster the latter group of loci have clinal (latitudinal) patterns of variation indicative of balancing selection. (9) The comparison of D. simulans/D. melanogaster protein variation gave a ratio of 1.04 for all loci and 1.42 for polymorphic loci, against a ratio of approximately 2-fold difference for silent nucleotide sites. This suggests that the species ratios of protein and silent nucleotide polymorphism are too close to call for selective difference between silent and allozyme variation in D. simulans. In conclusion, the contrasting levels of allozyme polymorphism, distribution of rare alleles, number of diallelic loci and the patterns of geographic differentiation between the two species suggest the role of natural selection in D. melanogaster, and of possibly ancient population structure and recent worldwide migration in D. simulans. Population size differences alone are insufficient as an explanation for the patterns of variation between these two species.     

Inferring Weak Selection from Patterns of Polymorphism and Divergence at ``silent' Sites in Drosophila DNA

Patterns of codon usage and ``silent'''' DNA divergence suggest that natural selection discriminates among synonymous codons in Drosophila. ``Preferred'''' codons are consistently found in higher frequencies within their synonymous families in Drosophila melanogaster genes. This suggests a simple model of silent DNA evolution where natural selection favors mutations from unpreferred to preferred codons (preferred changes). Changes in the opposite direction, from preferred to unpreferred synonymous codons (unpreferred changes), are selected against. Here, selection on synonymous DNA mutations is investigated by comparing the evolutionary dynamics of these two categories of silent DNA changes. Sequences from outgroups are used to determine the direction of synonymous DNA changes within and between D. melanogaster and Drosophila simulans for five genes. Population genetics theory shows that differences in the fitness effect of mutations can be inferred from the comparison of ratios of polymorphism to divergence. Unpreferred changes show a significantly higher ratio of polymorphism to divergence than preferred changes in the D. simulans lineage, confirming the action of selection at silent sites. An excess of unpreferred fixations in 28 genes suggests a relaxation of selection on synonymous mutations in D. melanogaster. Estimates of selection coefficients for synonymous mutations (3.6 <|N(e)s| < 1.3) in D. simulans are consistent with the reduced efficacy of natural selection (|N(e)s| < 1) in the three- to sixfold smaller effective population size of D. melanogaster. Synonymous DNA changes appear to be a prevalent class of weakly selected mutations in Drosophila.     

Positive selection drives the evolution of the Acp29AB accessory gland protein in Drosophila.

Nucleotide sequence variation at the Acp29AB gene region has been surveyed in Drosophila melanogaster from Spain (12 lines), Ivory Coast (14 lines), and Malawi (13 lines) and in one line of D. simulans. The approximately 1.7-kb region studied encompasses the Acp29AB gene that codes for a male accessory gland protein and its flanking regions. Seventy-seven nucleotide and 8 length polymorphisms were detected. Nonsynonymous polymorphism was an order of magnitude lower than synonymous polymorphism, but still high relative to other non-sex-related genes. In D. melanogaster variation at this region revealed no major genetic differentiation between East and West African populations, while differentiation was highly significant between the European and the two African populations. Comparison of polymorphism and divergence at synonymous and nonsynonymous sites showed an excess of fixed nonsynonymous changes, which indicates that the evolution of the Acp29AB protein has been driven by directional selection at least after the split of the D. melanogaster and D. simulans lineages. The pattern of variation in extant populations of D. melanogaster favors a scenario where the fixation of advantageous replacement substitutions occurred in the early stages of speciation and balancing selection is maintaining variation in this species.     

Historical Selection, Amino Acid Polymorphism and Lineage-Specific Divergence at the G6pd Locus in Drosophila Melanogaster and D. Simulans

The nucleotide diversity across 1705 bp of the G6pd gene is studied in 50 Drosophila melanogaster and 12 D. simulans lines. Our earlier report contrasted intraspecific polymorphism and interspecific differences at silent and replacement sites in these species. This report expands the number of European and African lines and examines the pattern of polymorphism with respect to the common A/B allozymes. In D. melanogaster the silent nucleotide diversity varies 2.8-fold across localities. The B allele sequences are two- to fourfold more variable than the derived A allele, and differences between allozymes are twice as among B alleles. There is strong linkage disequilibrium across the G6pd region. In both species the level of silent polymorphism increases from the 5' to 3' ends, while there is no comparable pattern in level of silent site divergence or fixation. The neutral model is not rejected in either species. Using D. yakuba as an outgroup, the D. melanogaster lineage shows a twofold greater rate of silent fixation, but less than half the rate of amino acid replacement. Lineage-specific differences in mutation fixation are inconsistent with neutral expectations and suggest the interaction of species-specific population size differences with both weakly advantageous and deleterious selection.     

Clines and adaptive evolution in the methuselah gene region in Drosophila melanogaster

In an effort to characterize further the patterns of selection and adaptive evolution at the methuselah locus in Drosophila species, we extended an analysis of geographical variation to include single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in adjacent genes on either side of the mth locus, and examined the molecular variation in a neighbouring methuselah paralogue (mth2). An analysis of 13 SNPs spanning a region of nearly 19 kilobases surrounding the mth locus demonstrated that a clinal pattern associated with the most common mth haplotype does not extend to adjacent gene loci, providing compelling evidence that the clinal pattern results from selection on as yet unidentified sites associated with the functional mth locus. mth2 exhibited a significant pattern of adaptive divergence among D. melanogaster, D. simulans and D. yakuba similar to that seen at mth. However, Ka : Ks ratios indicate a difference in levels of functional constraint at the two methuselah, loci with mth2 exhibiting a five- to six-fold reduction in levels of amino acid divergence relative to mth.     

The Rosy Region of Drosophila Melanogaster and Drosophila Simulans. I. Contrasting Levels of Naturally Occurring DNA Restriction Map Variation and Divergence

A 40-kb region around the rosy and snake loci was analyzed for restriction map variation among 60 lines of Drosophila melanogaster and 30 lines of Drosophila simulans collected together at a single locality in Raleigh, North Carolina. DNA sequence variation in D. simulans was estimated to be 6.3 times greater than in D. melanogaster (heterozygosities per nucleotide of 1.9% vs. 0.3%). This result stands in marked contrast to results of studies of phenotypic variation including proteins (allozymes), morphology and chromosome arrangements which are generally less variable and less geographically differentiated in D. simulans. Intraspecific polymorphism is not distributed uniformly over the 40-kb region. The level of heterozygosity per nucleotide varies more than 12-fold across the region in D. simulans, being highest over the hsc2 gene. Similar, though less extreme, variation in heterozygosity is also observed in D. melanogaster. Average interspecific divergence (corrected for intraspecific polymorphism) averaged 3.8%. The pattern of interspecific divergence over the 40-kb region shows some disparities with the spatial distribution of intraspecific variation, but is generally consistent with selective neutrality predictions: the most polymorphic regions within species are generally the most divergent between species. Sequence-length polymorphism is observed for D. melanogaster to be at levels comparable to other gene regions in this species. In contrast, no sequence length variation was observed among D. simulans chromosomes (limit of resolution approximately 100 bp). These data indicate that transposable elements play at best a minor role in the generation of naturally occurring genetic variation in D. simulans compared to D. melanogaster. We hypothesize that differences in species effective population size are the major determinant of the contrasting levels and patterns of DNA sequence and insertion/deletion variation that we report here and the patterns of allozyme and morphological variation and differentiation reported by other workers for these two species.     

Nucleotide variation at the hypervariable esterase 6 isozyme locus of Drosophila simulans

Esterase 6 (Est-6/EST6) is polymorphic in both Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans for two common allozyme forms, as well as for several other less common variants. Parallel latitudinal clines in the frequencies of the common EST6-F and EST6-S allozymes in these species have previously been interpreted in terms of a shared amino acid polymorphism that distinguishes the two variants and is subject to selection. Here we compare the sequences of four D. simulans Est-6 isolates and show that overall estimates of nucleotide heterozygosity in both coding and 5' flanking regions are more than threefold higher than those obtained previously for this gene in D. melanogaster. Nevertheless, the ratio of replacement to exon silent-site polymorphism in D. simulans is less than the ratio of replacement to silent divergence between D. simulans and D. melanogaster, which could be the result of increased efficiency of selection against replacement polymorphisms in D. simulans or to divergent selection between the two species. We also find that the amino acid polymorphisms separating EST6- F and EST6-S in D. simulans are not the same as those that separate these allozymes in D. melanogaster, implying that the shared clines do not reflect shared molecular targets for selection. All comparisons within and between the two species reveal a remarkable paucity of variation in a stretch of nearly 400 bp immediately 5' of the gene, indicative of strong selective constraint to retain essential aspects of Est-6 promoter function.      

Effect of Divergence Time and Recombination Rate on Molecular Evolution of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Drosophila</Emphasis> INE-1 Transposable Elements and Other Candidates for Neutrally Evolving Sites

Interspecies divergence of orthologous transposable element remnants is often assumed to be simply due to genetic drift of neutral mutations that occurred after the divergence of the species. However, divergence may also be affected by other factors, such as variation in the mutation rate, ancestral polymorphisms, or selection. Here we attempt to determine the impact of these forces on divergence of three classes of sites that are often assumed to be selectively unconstrained (INE-1 TE remnants, sites within short introns, and fourfold degenerate sites) in two different pairwise comparisons of Drosophila (D. melanogaster vs. D. simulans and D. simulans vs. D. sechellia). We find that divergence of these three classes of sites is strongly influenced by the recombination environment in which they are located, and this is especially true for the closer D. simulans vs. D. sechellia comparison. We suggest that this is mainly a result of the contribution of ancestral polymorphisms in different recombination regions. We also find that intergenic INE-1 elements are significantly more diverged than intronic INE-1 in both pairwise comparisons, implying the presence of either negative selection or lower mutation rates in introns. Furthermore, we show that substitution rates in INE-1 elements are not associated with the length of the noncoding sequence in which they are located, suggesting that reduced divergence in long noncoding sequences is not due to reduced mutation rates in these regions. Finally, we show that GC content for each site within INE-1 sequences has evolved toward an equilibrium value (approximately 33%) since insertion.     

DNA variability and divergence at the notch locus in Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans: a case of accelerated synonymous site divergence

DNA diversity in two segments of the Notch locus was surveyed in four populations of Drosophila melanogaster and two of D. simulans. In both species we observed evidence of non-steady-state evolution. In D. simulans we observed a significant excess of intermediate frequency variants in a non-African population. In D. melanogaster we observed a disparity between levels of sequence polymorphism and divergence between one of the Notch regions sequenced and other neutral X chromosome loci. The striking feature of the data is the high level of synonymous site divergence at Notch, which is the highest reported to date. To more thoroughly investigate the pattern of synonymous site evolution between these species, we developed a method for calibrating preferred, unpreferred, and equal synonymous substitutions by the effective (potential) number of such changes. In D. simulans, we find that preferred changes per "site" are evolving significantly faster than unpreferred changes at Notch. In contrast we observe a significantly faster per site substitution rate of unpreferred changes in D. melanogaster at this locus. These results suggest that positive selection, and not simply relaxation of constraint on codon bias, has contributed to the higher levels of unpreferred divergence along the D. melanogaster lineage at Notch.     

High divergence among Drosophila simulans mitochondrial haplogroups arose in midst of long term purifying selection

We characterize the type of selection acting within and among mitochondrial lineages in five closely related Drosophila species. We focus on D. simulans, where three genetically distinct mitochondrial haplogroups show high interhaplogroup divergence and low intrahaplogroup polymorphism. Using maximum likelihood models we find that the branches leading to these three distinct mitochondrial groups show a significantly reduced rate of nonsynonymous relative to synonymous substitution. This interhaplogroup rate is significantly reduced compared to the intrahaplogroup rate, and closely resembles the rate observed between distinct species. The data suggest that slightly deleterious mutations segregating within D. simulans haplogroups are removed by selection prior to their fixation among haplogroups. We explore several hypotheses to explain how lineages within a single species can be compatible with this model of slightly deleterious mutation. The most likely hypothesis is that D. simulans haplogroups have persisted in isolation, perhaps due to association with the bacterial symbiont Wolbachia and/or demographic history, introducing a bias against the fixation of slightly deleterious mutations.     

Recurrent deletion and gene presence/absence polymorphism: telomere dynamics dominate evolution at the tip of 3L in Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans

Although Drosophila melanogaster has been the subject of intensive analysis of polymorphism and divergence, little is known about the distribution of variation at the most distal regions of chromosomes arms. Here we report a survey of genetic variation on the tip of 3L in D. melanogaster and D. simulans. Levels of single nucleotide polymorphism in the most distal euchromatic sequence are approximately one order of magnitude less than that typically observed in genomic regions of normal crossing over, consistent with what might be expected under models of linked selection in regions of low crossing over. However, despite this reduced level of nucleotide variation, we found abundant deletion polymorphism. These deletions create at least three gene presence/absence polymorphisms within D. melanogaster: the putative G-protein coupled receptor mthl-8 (which is the most distal known or predicted gene on 3L) and the unannotated mRNAs AY060886 and BT006009. Strikingly, D. simulans is also segregating deletions that cause mthl8 presence/absence polymorphism. Breakpoint sequencing and tests of correlations with segregating SNPs in D. melanogaster suggest that each deletion is unique. Cloned breakpoint sequences revealed the presence of Het-A elements just distal to unique, canonical euchromatic sequences. This pattern suggests a model in which repeated telomeric deficiencies cause deletions of euchromatic sequence followed by subsequent "healing" by retrotranposition of Het-A elements. These data reveal the dominance of telomeric dynamics on the evolution of closely linked sequences in Drosophila.     

Molecular population genetics of male accessory gland proteins in the Drosophila simulans complex

Accessory gland proteins are a major component of Drosophila seminal fluid. These proteins have a variety of functions and may be subject to sexual selection and/or antagonistic evolution between the sexes. Most population genetic data from these proteins are from D. melanogaster and D. simulans. Here, we extend the population genetic analysis of Acp genes to the other simulans complex species, D. mauritiana and D. sechellia. We sequenced population samples of seven Acp's from D. mauritiana, D. sechellia, and D. simulans. We investigated the population genetics of these genes on individual simulans complex lineages and compared Acp polymorphism and divergence to polymorphism and divergence from a set of non-Acp loci in the same species. Polymorphism and divergence data from the simulans complex revealed little evidence for adaptive protein evolution at individual loci. However, we observed a dramatically inflated index of dispersion for amino acid substitutions in the simulans complex at Acp genes, but not at non-Acp genes. This pattern of episodic bursts of protein evolution in Acp's provides the strongest evidence to date that the population genetic mechanisms driving Acp divergence are different from the mechanisms driving evolution at most Drosophila genes.     

Molecular variation at the In(2L)t proximal breakpoint site in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans

A previous study of nucleotide polymorphism in a Costa Rican population of Drosophila melanogaster found evidence for a nonneutral deficiency in the number of haplotypes near the proximal breakpoint of In(2L)t, a common inversion polymorphism in this species. Another striking feature of the data was a window of unusually high nucleotide diversity spanning the breakpoint site. To distinguish between selective and neutral demographic explanations for the observed patterns in the data, we sample alleles from three additional populations of D. melanogaster and one population of D. simulans. We find that the strength of associations among sites found at the breakpoint varies between populations of D. melanogaster. In D. simulans, analysis of the homologous region reveals unusually elevated levels of nucleotide polymorphism spanning the breakpoint site. As with American populations of D. melanogaster, our D. simulans sample shows a marked reduction in the number of haplotypes but not in nucleotide diversity. Haplotype tests reveal a significant deficiency in the number of haplotypes relative to the neutral expectation in the D. simulans sample and some populations of D. melanogaster. At the breakpoint site, the level of divergence between haplotype classes is comparable to interspecific divergence. The observation of interspecific polymorphisms that differentiate major haplotype classes in both species suggests that haplotype classes at this locus are considerably old. When considered in the context of other studies on patterns of variation within and between populations of D. melanogaster and D. simulans, our data appear more consistent with the operation of selection than with simple demographic explanations.     

Variation in synonymous codon use and DNA polymorphism within the Drosophila genome

A strong negative correlation between the rate of amino-acid substitution and codon usage bias in Drosophila has been attributed to interference between positive selection at nonsynonymous sites and weak selection on codon usage. To further explore this possibility we have investigated polymorphism and divergence at three kinds of sites: synonymous, nonsynonymous and intronic in relation to codon bias in D. melanogaster and D. simulans. We confirmed that protein evolution is one of the main explicative parameters for interlocus codon bias variation (r(2) approximately 40%). However, intron or synonymous diversities, which could have been expected to be good indicators of local interference [here defined as the additional increase of drift due to selection on tightly linked sites, also called 'genetic draft' by Gillespie (2000)] did not covary significantly with codon bias or with protein evolution. Concurrently, levels of polymorphism were reduced in regions of low recombination rates whereas codon bias was not. Finally, while nonsynonymous diversities were very well correlated between species, neither synonymous nor intron diversities observed in D. melanogaster were correlated with those observed in D. simulans. All together, our results suggest that the selective constraint on the protein is a stable component of gene evolution while local interference is not. The pattern of variation in genetic draft along the genome therefore seems to be instable through evolutionary times and should therefore be considered as a minor determinant of codon bias variance. We argue that selective constraints for optimal codon usage are likely to be correlated with selective constraints on the protein, both between codons within a gene, as previously suggested, and also between genes within a genome.     

Polymorphism and Divergence at a Drosophila Pseudogene Locus

The larval cuticle protein (Lcp) cluster in Drosophila melanogaster contains four functional genes and a closely related pseudogene. A 630-bp fragment including the larval cuticle pseudogene locus (Lcpψ) was nucleotide sequenced in 10 strains of D. melanogaster and a 458-bp Lcpψ fragment from D. simulans was also sequenced. We used these data to test the hypotheses that the rates of synonymous and nonsynonymous substitution are equal, that the absolute levels of variation are higher than in functional genes, and that intraspecific polymorphism is correlated with interspecific divergence. As predicted, synonymous and nonsynonymous substitution rates were equivalent, and overall nucleotide divergence between D. melanogaster and D. simulans (Jukes-Cantor distance = 0.149 +/- 0.150) was extremely high. However, within-species DNA sequence comparisons at Lcpψ revealed lower levels of polymorphism ( & = 0.001 +/- 0.001) than at many functional loci in D. melanogaster. Using the HUDSON, KREITMAN, and AGUADE (HKA) test, we show that the level of polymorphism in Lcpψ within D. melanogaster is lower than expected given the amount of divergence between D. melanogaster and D. simulans when the pseudogene data are compared to the Adh 5' flanking region. Because the Lcpψ lies in a region of relatively infrequent recombination, we suggest that the low level of within-species polymorphism is the result of background selection.