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Transcriptome Gene Expression and It's Relation to Muscle Performance in Anolis Lizards
Author(s) -
Smith Luke Brendan,
Anderson Christopher,
Roberts Thomas,
Zeng Erliang,
Liebl Andrea
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.545.3
Subject(s) - anolis , biology , transcriptome , gene expression , gene , evolutionary biology , iguanidae , predation , ecology , lizard , sauria , genetics
Animal muscles are exceptionally diverse in structure and function as they meet a variety of demands for an individual to survive. Whole organisms must adapt to their environments. However, specific muscles vary to best suit each muscle's role in promoting organism survival; differences in gene expression among muscles likely accounts for this variation. Anolis lizards, a species that has undergone adaptive radiation, live in a wide range of habitats and ecotypes to which each species has had to evolve appropriately to survive. Unsurprisingly, the muscle performance of these lizards (e.g., twitch time and peak contractile velocity) varies among muscle types. Specifically, the performance of jaw and leg muscles, strongly selected for because of their importance for survival (e.g., to escape predation and to bite prey), differ between the muscles both across and within individuals. Here, we use RNA‐seq to measure the underlying molecular mechanisms generating these differences. Using gene networks, we are able to differentiate the two types of muscles. The observed discrepancy in gene expression are expected to explain the divergence in performance we observe between the muscles. Determining the underlying differences in gene expression between muscles and individuals will help explain how performance metrics (e.g., twitch time and peak contractile velocity) change over time and how the ecology and evolution of an individual influences it. Support or Funding Information University of South Dakota, College of Arts and Sciences and CURCS mini‐grant This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .