Molecular Plasticity in Animal Pigmentation: Emerging Processes Underlying Color Changes
Molecular Plasticity in Animal Pigmentation: Emerging Processes Underlying Color Changes
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DOI：
10.1093/icb/icaa142
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发表时间：
2020-12-01
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Alvarado, Sebastian G.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Alvarado, Sebastian G.
动物的体色经过了严格的研究，并为健康提供了形态学意义，对社会行为、捕食者与猎物的相互作用和性选择都有影响。在脊椎动物中，它的研究加深了我们对从行为到分子生物学等不同领域的理解。在寻找潜在的分子机制时，许多人利用基于谱系和全基因组关联筛选来揭示导致早期发育中发生的模式变异的遗传结构。然而，遗传差异并不能提供脊椎动物在分子水平上最普遍的颜色动态变化的全貌。成年期通过表型可塑性发生的体色变化依赖于各种社交、视觉和饮食线索，与遗传变异无关。在这里，我将回顾色素细胞生物学对动物颜色变化的贡献以及描述其分子基础和功能的最新研究。在这方面，DNA甲基化等保守的表观遗传过程在赋予基因调控可塑性方面发挥着重要作用，因为它与色素细胞功能相关。最后，我将介绍非洲丽鱼作为研究动物颜色变化的色素沉着和分子可塑性的新兴模型。我认为这些过程在与环境刺激的对话中是脊椎动物变异的重要调节因素，也是伴随着脊椎动物体色变化的选择性优势。
Animal coloration has been rigorously studied and has provided morphological implications for fitness with influences over social behavior, predator-prey interactions, and sexual selection. In vertebrates, its study has developed our understanding across diverse fields ranging from behavior to molecular biology. In the search for underlying molecular mechanisms, many have taken advantage of pedigree-based and genome-wide association screens to reveal the genetic architecture responsible for pattern variation that occurs in early development. However, genetic differences do not provide a full picture of the dynamic changes in coloration that are most prevalent across vertebrates at the molecular level. Changes in coloration that occur in adulthood via phenotypic plasticity rely on various social, visual, and dietary cues independent of genetic variation. Here, I will review the contributions of pigment cell biology to animal color changes and recent studies describing their molecular underpinnings and function. In this regard, conserved epigenetic processes such as DNA methylation play a role in lending plasticity to gene regulation as it relates to chromatophore function. Lastly, I will present African cichlids as emerging models for the study of pigmentation and molecular plasticity for animal color changes. I posit that these processes, in a dialog with environmental stimuli, are important regulators of variation and the selective advantages that accompany a change in coloration for vertebrate animals.