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. 1993 Feb;133(2):291–298. doi: 10.1093/genetics/133.2.291

Rates of DNA Evolution in Drosophila Depend on Function and Developmental Stage of Expression

J R Powell 1, A Caccone 1, J M Gleason 1, L Nigro 1
PMCID: PMC1205319  PMID: 8094697

Abstract

DNA-sequence divergence of genes expressed in the embryonic stage was compared with the divergence of genes expressed in adults for 13 species of Drosophila representing various degrees of relatedness. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments were conducted using as tracers complementary DNA (cDNA) reversed transcribed from poly(A)(+) mRNA isolated from different developmental stages. The results indicate: (1) cDNA is less diverged than total single-copy DNA; (2) cDNA sequences are not in the rapidly evolving fraction of the single-copy genome of Drosophila; (3) early in evolutionary divergence embryonic messages are about half as diverged as adult messages; sequence data from some of the species compared indicate this is likely due to differences in rates of silent substitutions in genes expressed at different stages of development; and (4) at greater evolutionary distance, the differences in embryonic and adult messages disappear; this could be due to lineage-specific shifts in codon usage.

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Selected References

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