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The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages
Asexual organisms, often perceived as evolutionary dead ends, can be long-lived and geographically widespread. We propose that epigenetic mechanisms could play a crucial role in the evolutionary persistence of these lineages. Genetically identical organisms could rely on phenotypic plasticity to fac...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335536/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22567390 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/534289 |
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author | Castonguay, Emilie Angers, Bernard |
author_facet | Castonguay, Emilie Angers, Bernard |
author_sort | Castonguay, Emilie |
collection | PubMed |
description | Asexual organisms, often perceived as evolutionary dead ends, can be long-lived and geographically widespread. We propose that epigenetic mechanisms could play a crucial role in the evolutionary persistence of these lineages. Genetically identical organisms could rely on phenotypic plasticity to face environmental variation. Epigenetic modifications could be the molecular mechanism enabling such phenotypic plasticity; they can be influenced by the environment and act at shorter timescales than mutation. Recent work on the asexual vertebrate Chrosomus eos-neogaeus (Pisces: Cyprinidae) provides broad insights into the contribution of epigenetics in genetically identical individuals. We discuss the extension of these results to other asexual organisms, in particular those resulting from interspecific hybridizations. We finally develop on the evolutionary relevance of epigenetic variation in the context of heritability. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3335536 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Hindawi Publishing Corporation |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-33355362012-05-07 The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages Castonguay, Emilie Angers, Bernard Genet Res Int Review Article Asexual organisms, often perceived as evolutionary dead ends, can be long-lived and geographically widespread. We propose that epigenetic mechanisms could play a crucial role in the evolutionary persistence of these lineages. Genetically identical organisms could rely on phenotypic plasticity to face environmental variation. Epigenetic modifications could be the molecular mechanism enabling such phenotypic plasticity; they can be influenced by the environment and act at shorter timescales than mutation. Recent work on the asexual vertebrate Chrosomus eos-neogaeus (Pisces: Cyprinidae) provides broad insights into the contribution of epigenetics in genetically identical individuals. We discuss the extension of these results to other asexual organisms, in particular those resulting from interspecific hybridizations. We finally develop on the evolutionary relevance of epigenetic variation in the context of heritability. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2012 2012-02-14 /pmc/articles/PMC3335536/ /pubmed/22567390 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/534289 Text en Copyright © 2012 E. Castonguay and B. Angers. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Review Article Castonguay, Emilie Angers, Bernard The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages |
title | The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages |
title_full | The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages |
title_fullStr | The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages |
title_full_unstemmed | The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages |
title_short | The Key Role of Epigenetics in the Persistence of Asexual Lineages |
title_sort | key role of epigenetics in the persistence of asexual lineages |
topic | Review Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335536/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22567390 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/534289 |
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