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Journal of Heredity Advance Access originally published online on March 30, 2005
Journal of Heredity 2005 96(4):388-395; doi:10.1093/jhered/esi051
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© The American Genetic Association. 2005. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org.

Genetic Coadaptation of the Amylase Gene System in Drosophila melanogaster: Evidence for the Selective Advantage of the Lowest AMY Activity and of Its Epistatic Genetic Background

H. Araki, S. Yoshizumi, N. Inomata, and T. Yamazaki

From the Department of Biology, Graduate School of Sciences, Kyushu University, 6-10-1, Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan (Araki, Yoshizumi, Inomata, and Yamazaki); Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, 3029 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, OR 97333 (Araki); and Research Institute of Evolutionary Biology, 2-4-28, Kamiyoga, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 158-0098, Japan (Yamazaki)

Address correspondence to Hitoshi Araki, Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, 3029 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, OR 97333, or e-mail: arakih{at}science.oregonstate.edu.

In natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster, an amylase isozyme with the lowest {alpha}-amylase activity (AMY1,1) is predominant. To evaluate the selective significance of AMY1,1 and its regulatory factor(s), we examined selection experiments in laboratory populations on two distinct food environments. After 300 generations, AMY1,1 became predominant (89%) in a glucose (a product of AMY)-rich environment, while an isozyme with higher {alpha}-amylase activity, AMY1,6, became predominant (83%) in a starch (substrate)-rich environment. We found that the identical alleles of the amylase (Amy) gene, which encodes each of AMY1,1 and AMY1,6, were shared between the two populations in the different food environments, employing the nucleotide sequencing of the duplicated Amy genes. Nevertheless, AMY1,6 homozygotes selected in the starch-rich environment had a twofold higher AMY enzyme activity than those selected in the glucose-rich environment, suggesting a coadaptation of the coding region and its regulatory factor(s) on the genetic background. Such a difference in AMY enzyme activity was not detected between AMY1,1 homozygotes, suggesting that the effect of the genetic background is epistatic. Our results indicate that natural selection is working on the Amy gene system as a whole for flies to adapt to the various food environments of local populations.


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