AUTHOR=Dai Aimei , Wang Yushuai , Greenberg Anthony , Liufu Zhongqi , Tang Tian 

TITLE=Rapid Evolution of Autosomal Binding Sites of the Dosage Compensation Complex in Drosophila melanogaster and Its Association With Transcription Divergence

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=12

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.675027

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2021.675027

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p>How pleiotropy influences evolution of protein sequence remains unclear. The male-specific lethal (MSL) complex in <italic>Drosophila</italic> mediates dosage compensation by 2-fold upregulation of the X chromosome in males. Nevertheless, several MSL proteins also bind autosomes and likely perform functions not related to dosage compensation. Here, we study the evolution of MOF, MSL1, and MSL2 biding sites in <italic>Drosophila melanogaster</italic> and its close relative <italic>Drosophila simulans</italic>. We found pervasive expansion of the MSL binding sites in <italic>D. melanogaster</italic>, particularly on autosomes. The majority of these newly-bound regions are unlikely to function in dosage compensation and associated with an increase in expression divergence between <italic>D. melanogaster</italic> and <italic>D. simulans</italic>. While dosage-compensation related sites show clear signatures of adaptive evolution, these signatures are even more marked among autosomal regions. Our study points to an intriguing avenue of investigation of pleiotropy as a mechanism promoting rapid protein sequence evolution.</p>