![]() ![]() This was supported by a Marie Curie grant for early stage training and the BBSRC-John Innes Centre PhD Rotation Program. ![]() "What our study shows is how and why hybridisation can have such a strong impact on performance," said Professor Coen. "Breeders already know there is no magic hybrid vigour gene, otherwise they would have used it by now," said Professor Coen. The findings avoid some of the pitfalls of previous explanations. ![]() This explanation of hybrid vigour covers natural species as well as domesticated varieties. "But the cumulative effects of variation explain the conflicting phenomena of hybrid superiority and inferiority." "Gene expression levels are free to drift around during evolution within particular bounds," said Professor Coen. However, they also show that in the longer term, other traits such as those involved in sexual reproduction might be expected to perform less well, accounting for reduced fertility of hybrids. The results show that hybrids might be expected to exhibit increased performance in basic traits such as growth. "This is the first study that analyses the consequences of variations in gene expression on conserved traits in closely related species," said Professor Coen, from the John Innes Centre. Hybridisation, however, might partly eliminate the noise. They suggest that natural selection may be unable to eliminate the noise they identified. The "noise" or variation they identified only has a very minor effect on a species for any single gene, but the collective effect for many genes could be substantial, reducing overall species performance. They measured the activity of two relevant genes and its effect on the trait. They found that when species hybridise, some of the variation in gene activity may be cancelled out, leading to greater vigour.Įnrico Coen and colleagues analysed the trait that causes flower asymmetry in two closely related species of snapdragon. In a study published in the online open access journal PLoS Biology, the researchers found a type of genetic "noise" caused by a surprising degree of variation in gene activity even for highly similar traits in closely related species. ![]()
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