Accelerated FoxP2 evolution in echolocating bats

FOXP2 is a transcription factor implicated in the development and neural control of orofacial coordination, particularly with respect to vocalisation. Observations that orthologues show almost no variation across vertebrates yet differ by two amino acids between humans and chimpanzees have led to sp...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2007-09, Vol.2 (9), p.e900-e900
Main Authors: Li, Gang, Wang, Jinhong, Rossiter, Stephen J, Jones, Gareth, Zhang, Shuyi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino acids
Animals
Base Sequence
Bats
Bioinformatics
Chimpanzees
Chiroptera
Chiroptera - genetics
Chiroptera - physiology
Developmental biology
DNA Primers
Echolocation
Echolocation (Physiology)
Evolution
Evolutionary Biology/Animal Genetics
Evolutionary Biology/Evolutionary and Comparative Genetics
Evolutionary Biology/Evolutionary Ecology
Exons
Foxp2 protein
Genetic aspects
Integrated software
Life sciences
Mammals
Molecular biology
Mutation
Nycteris thebaica
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Population genetics
Prey
Sensorimotor system
Sonar systems
Transcription factors
Transcription Factors - genetics
Vertebrates
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:FOXP2 is a transcription factor implicated in the development and neural control of orofacial coordination, particularly with respect to vocalisation. Observations that orthologues show almost no variation across vertebrates yet differ by two amino acids between humans and chimpanzees have led to speculation that recent evolutionary changes might relate to the emergence of language. Echolocating bats face especially challenging sensorimotor demands, using vocal signals for orientation and often for prey capture. To determine whether mutations in the FoxP2 gene could be associated with echolocation, we sequenced FoxP2 from echolocating and non-echolocating bats as well as a range of other mammal species. We found that contrary to previous reports, FoxP2 is not highly conserved across all nonhuman mammals but is extremely diverse in echolocating bats. We detected divergent selection (a change in selective pressure) at FoxP2 between bats with contrasting sonar systems, suggesting the intriguing possibility of a role for FoxP2 in the evolution and development of echolocation. We speculate that observed accelerated evolution of FoxP2 in bats supports a previously proposed function in sensorimotor coordination.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0000900