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Title: Divergent and Parallel Routes of Biochemical Adaptation in High-Altitude Passerine Birds from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Author: Xiaojia Zhu, Yuyan Guan, Anthony V. Signore, Chandrasekhar Natarajan, Shane G. DuBay, Yalin Cheng, Naijian Han, Gang Song, Yanhua Qu, Hideaki Moriyama, Federico G. Hoffmann, Angela Fago, Fumin Lei, Jay F. Storz
Abstract: Mountain ranges and highland plateaus in different parts of the world provide an opportunity to investigate the extent to which native species have followed similar or different routes of adaptation to the challenges of life at high altitude. Here we demonstrate that high-altitude songbirds from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau independently evolved derived increases in hemoglobin–O2 affinity in comparison with their closest lowland relatives in East Asia. In comparisons that also included more distantly related high-altitude avian taxa, site-directed mutagenesis experiments revealed two cases in which convergent increases in hemoglobin–O2 affinity were caused by identical amino acid substitutions at the same sites. However, most adaptive convergence in protein function was attributable to different amino acid substitutions in different species.
Corresponding author: Fumin Lei, Jay F. Storz
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PubYear: 2018
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Issue: DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720487115
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Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
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URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/02/02/1720487115
   

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