Parallel evolution of KCNQ4 in echolocating bats

High-frequency hearing is required for echolocating bats to locate, range and identify objects, yet little is known about its molecular basis. The discovery of a high-frequency hearing-related gene, KCNQ4, provides an opportunity to address this question. Here, we obtain the coding regions of KCNQ4...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2011-10, Vol.6 (10), p.e26618-e26618
Main Authors: Liu, Zhen, Li, Shude, Wang, Wei, Xu, Dongming, Murphy, Robert W, Shi, Peng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino acids
Animals
Bats
Bayesian analysis
Bioinformatics
Biological Evolution
Biology
Chiroptera
Chiroptera - genetics
Echolocation
Evolution
Evolution, Molecular
Fines & penalties
Genetic research
Genomes
Hearing
KCNQ Potassium Channels - genetics
KCNQ4 protein
Laboratories
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Potassium
Proteins
Species Specificity
Taxonomy
Zoology
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Summary:High-frequency hearing is required for echolocating bats to locate, range and identify objects, yet little is known about its molecular basis. The discovery of a high-frequency hearing-related gene, KCNQ4, provides an opportunity to address this question. Here, we obtain the coding regions of KCNQ4 from 15 species of bats, including echolocating bats that have higher frequency hearing and non-echolocating bats that have the same ability as most other species of mammals. The strongly supported protein-tree resolves a monophyletic group containing all bats with higher frequency hearing and this arrangement conflicts with the phylogeny of bats in which these species are paraphyletic. We identify five parallel evolved sites in echolocating bats belonging to both suborders. The evolutionary trajectories of the parallel sites suggest the independent gain of higher frequency hearing ability in echolocating bats. This study highlights the usefulness of convergent or parallel evolutionary studies for finding phenotype-related genes and contributing to the resolution of evolutionary problems.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0026618