Publication
Gene content evolution in the arthropods
Publisher:
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:
23-01-2020
DOI:
10.1186/S13059-019-1925-7
Abstract: Arthropods comprise the largest and most erse phylum on Earth and play vital roles in nearly every ecosystem. Their ersity stems in part from variations on a conserved body plan, resulting from and recorded in adaptive changes in the genome. Dissection of the genomic record of sequence change enables broad questions regarding genome evolution to be addressed, even across hyper- erse taxa within arthropods. Using 76 whole genome sequences representing 21 orders spanning more than 500 million years of arthropod evolution, we document changes in gene and protein domain content and provide temporal and phylogenetic context for interpreting these innovations. We identify many novel gene families that arose early in the evolution of arthropods and during the ersification of insects into modern orders. We reveal unexpected variation in patterns of DNA methylation across arthropods and ex les of gene family and protein domain evolution coincident with the appearance of notable phenotypic and physiological adaptations such as flight, metamorphosis, sociality, and chemoperception. These analyses demonstrate how large-scale comparative genomics can provide broad new insights into the genotype to phenotype map and generate testable hypotheses about the evolution of animal ersity.