Abstract
Small RNAs (sRNAs) regulate genes in plants and animals. Here, we show that population-wide differences in color patterns in snapdragon flowers are caused by an inverted duplication that generates sRNAs. The complexity and size of the transcripts indicate that the duplication represents an intermediate on the pathway to microRNA evolution. The sRNAs repress a pigment biosynthesis gene, creating a yellow highlight at the site of pollinator entry. The inverted duplication exhibits steep clines in allele frequency in a natural hybrid zone, showing that the allele is under selection. Thus, regulatory interactions of evolutionarily recent sRNAs can be acted upon by selection and contribute to the evolution of phenotypic diversity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 925-928 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Science |
| Volume | 358 |
| Issue number | 6365 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 17 2017 |
Funding
The sRNA sequencing data presented in this study is publicly available on Gene Expression Omnibus 56 under accession number GSE91378. Data sets for genomic DNAs are available at the European Nucleotide Archive, accession number PRJEB22668, and scripts at linked sites. The authors have no competing interests. We thank M.-E. Mannarelli for technical support, N. Barton for suggestions on the manuscript, and A. Rebocho for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the U.K. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant BB/G009325/1, awarded to E.C. H.T. was supported by a Ph.D. scholarship from the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) (SFRH/BD/60982/2009), through the European Social Fund (Programa Operacional Potencial Humano program). The supplementary materials contain additional data. For further background, see antspec.org.