This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Intragenomic conflict is thought to be the major selective force leading to parent-of-origin influences on gene expression in mammals and seed-bearing plants. Genes central to the molecular interaction of conflicting entities show extraordinarily rapid rates of evolution. The maternal/fetal relationship in livebearing animals has been likened to a host/parasite interaction since the fetus is generally only half related to the mother. The paternal genome, therefore, is in a unique position to influence the level of maternal provisioning by driving adaptive change at the maternal/fetal interface. Placentation in poeciliid fishes has evolved independently in numerous recently diverged lineages. Broad scale examination of the genetic changes accompanying the adaptation to placentation will provide unique insights into the mutational mechanisms underlying the evolution of a developmental program. The PIs will employ transformative molecular genetics approaches to identify genes that have undergone adaptive changes leading from yolk-provisioned to maternal provisioned embryogenesis. By using next generation sequencing technology, otherwise known as massively parallel sequencing, the PIs will produce full gene activity information for species with vastly different reproductive strategies in an effort to identify the consequences of genomic conflict on genes involved in fetal growth regulation. In addition to the genomics resources this work will provide for the Poeciliidae, the proposed experiments offer educational and training opportunities for post-doctoral, post-graduate, undergraduate and high school students from diverse backgrounds.
