Drosophila Acp Evolution

在果蝇中，雄性将大量的附腺蛋白(ACPs)与精子一起传递给雌性。这些蛋白质对女性的生理有几个影响。它们还影响精子的使用模式(雌性果蝇将精子储存在专门的器官中)。此外，这些蛋白质可能会影响精子竞争的结果，当一只雌性与多只雄性交配时就会发生这种情况。ACP表现出极不寻常的进化和变异模式，可能是自然选择的结果。这项拟议的工作使用DNA序列分析和ACPs转录的定量测量来衡量果蝇内部以及黑腹果蝇与三个密切相关物种之间氨基酸序列和基因表达的差异。这项工作的目标是揭示导致这些基因进化速度异常高的进化机制。每一代男性和女性都会相互作用繁殖。了解由于这些相互作用而产生的合作和冲突是生物学的一个重要领域。ACP很可能是一种重要的蛋白质，它在调节雄性和雌性相互作用的机制和进化方面起着重要作用。因此，揭示这些基因变异背后的进化机制可能会为动物之间的这种相互作用提供一般的见解。

In Drosophila, males transfer a large number of accessory gland proteins (Acps) to females along with sperm. These proteins have several effects on female physiology. They also affect patterns of sperm use (female flies store sperm in specialized organs). Furthermore, these proteins may affect the outcome of sperm competition, which occurs when a female mates with multiple males. Acps show highly unusual patterns of evolution and variation, perhaps as a result of natural selection. The proposed work uses DNA sequence analysis and quantitative measures of transcription at Acps to measure variation in amino acid sequence and gene expression within Drosophila melanogaster and between D. melanogaster and three closely related species. The goal of the work is to reveal the evolutionary mechanisms leading to the unusually high rates of evolution in these genes.Males and females interact in each generation to reproduce. Understanding the cooperation and conflicts that arise as result of these interactions is an important area of biology. Acps are likely to be important proteins mediating the mechanistic and evolutionary aspects of male-female interactions. Therefore, revealing the evolutionary mechanisms underlying variation in these genes may provide general insights into such interactions in animals.