Abstract
Although many studies have examined quantitative trait variation across many species, only a small number of genes and thereby molecular mechanisms have been discovered. Without these data, we can only speculate about evolutionary processes that underlie trait variation. Here, we review how quantitative and molecular genetics in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans led to the discovery and validation of 37 quantitative trait genes over the past 15 years. Using these data, we can start to make inferences about evolution from these quantitative trait genes, including the roles that coding versus noncoding variation, gene family expansion, common versus rare variants, pleiotropy, and epistasis play in trait variation across this species.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 933-947 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Trends in Genetics |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2021 |
Funding
We would like to thank Jan Kammenga, Lisa van Sluijs, Robyn Tanny, and Sam Widmayer for helpful comments on the manuscript. E.C.A. and K.S.E. received support from the NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology at Northwestern University (awards Simons Foundation /SFARI 597491-RWC and the National Science Foundation 1764421). E.C.A. also received support from a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. K.S.E. also received support from the Cell and Molecular Basis of Disease Training grant (T32-GM008061). P.T.M. received support from NIH R01GM114170 . M.H.W. was supported by NIH R01AA026658 . M.G.S. was supported by NWO domain Applied and Engineering Sciences VENI grant (17282).
Keywords
- Caenorhabditis elegans
- QTG
- QTL
- QTV
- evolutionary genetics
- quantitative genetics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics