The evolution of posttranscriptional regulation

Complete genomic sequences from diverse phylogenetic lineages reveal notable increases in genome complexity from prokaryotes to multicellular eukaryotes. The changes include gradual increases in gene number, resulting from the retention of duplicate genes, and more abrupt increases in the abundance of spliceosomal introns and mobile genetic elements. We argue that many of these modifications emerged passively in response to the long-term population-size reductions that accompanied increases in organism size. According to this model, much of the restructuring of eukaryotic genomes was initiated by nonadaptive processes, and this in turn provided novel substrates for the secondary evolution of phenotypic complexity by natural selection. The enormous long-term effective population sizes of prokaryotes may impose a substantial barrier to the evolution of complex genomes and morphologies.

To begin to understand the genetic architecture of natural variation in gene expression, we carried out genetic linkage analysis of genomewide expression patterns in a cross between a laboratory strain and a wild strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Over 1500 genes were differentially expressed between the parent strains. Expression levels of 570 genes were linked to one or more different loci, with most expression levels showing complex inheritance patterns. The loci detected by linkage fell largely into two categories: cis-acting modulators of single genes and trans-acting modulators of many genes. We found eight such trans-acting loci, each affecting the expression of a group of 7 to 94 genes of related function.

How species with similar repertoires of protein-coding genes differ so markedly at the phenotypic level is poorly understood. By comparing organ transcriptomes from vertebrate species spanning ~350 million years of evolution, we observed significant differences in alternative splicing complexity between vertebrate lineages, with the highest complexity in primates. Within 6 million years, the splicing profiles of physiologically equivalent organs diverged such that they are more strongly related to the identity of a species than they are to organ type. Most vertebrate species-specific splicing patterns are cis-directed. However, a subset of pronounced splicing changes are predicted to remodel protein interactions involving trans-acting regulators. These events likely further contributed to the diversification of splicing and other transcriptomic changes that underlie phenotypic differences among vertebrate species.