The cost of gene expression underlies a fitness trade-off in yeast
Open Access
- 7 April 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 106 (14), 5755-5760
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0901620106
Abstract
Natural selection optimizes an organism's genotype within the context of its environment. Adaptations to one environment can decrease fitness in another, revealing evolutionary trade-offs. Here, we show that the cost of gene expression underlies a trade-off between growth rate and mating efficiency in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. During asexual growth, mutations that eliminate the ability to mate provide an ≈2% per-generation growth-rate advantage. Some strains, including most laboratory strains, carry an allele of GPA1 (an upstream component of the mating pathway) that increases mating efficiency by ≈30% per round of mating at the cost of an ≈1% per-generation growth-rate disadvantage. In addition to demonstrating a trade-off between growth rate and mating efficiency, our results illustrate differences in the selective pressures defining fitness in the laboratory versus the natural environment and show that selection, acting on the cost of gene expression, can optimize expression levels and promote gene loss.This publication has 46 references indexed in Scilit:
- Evo-Devo: Variations on Ancestral ThemesCell, 2008
- Coordination of Growth Rate, Cell Cycle, Stress Response, and Metabolic Activity in YeastMolecular Biology of the Cell, 2008
- Mutation of the Apc1 homologue shattered disrupts normal eye development by disrupting G1 cell cycle arrest and progression through mitosisDevelopmental Biology, 2007
- An experimental test of evolutionary trade-offs during temperature adaptationProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007
- The Speed of Evolution and Maintenance of Variation in Asexual PopulationsCurrent Biology, 2007
- Regressive Evolution in the Mexican Cave Tetra, Astyanax mexicanusCurrent Biology, 2007
- Genome-Wide Detection of Polymorphisms at Nucleotide Resolution with a Single DNA MicroarrayScience, 2006
- Complete sequence and comparative genome analysis of the dairy bacterium Streptococcus thermophilusNature Biotechnology, 2004
- Trans-acting regulatory variation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the role of transcription factorsNature Genetics, 2003
- Massive gene decay in the leprosy bacillusNature, 2001