Connectivity in gene coexpression networks negatively correlates with rates of molecular evolution in flowering plants

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 12; no. 7; p. e0182289
• Main Authors: Masalia, Rishi R, Bewick, Adam J, Burke, John M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 31.07.2017; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Angiosperms; Arabidopsis thaliana; Arrays; Bioinformatics; Biological evolution; Biology and Life Sciences; Computer and Information Sciences; Connectivity; Evolution; Evolution, Molecular; Evolutionary genetics; Experiments; Flowering; Flowering plants; Gene expression; Gene regulation; Gene Regulatory Networks; Genes; Genes, Plant; Genetic aspects; Genomes; Genomics; Glycine; Glycine max; Internet; Magnoliopsida - genetics; Molecular evolution; Network topologies; Networks; Oryza sativa; Plant biology; Proteins; Research and Analysis Methods; Signal transduction; Solanum lycopersicum; Species; Taxa; Topology; Zea mays; United States > US; Georgia
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182289

Gene coexpression networks are a useful tool for summarizing transcriptomic data and providing insight into patterns of gene regulation in a variety of species. Though there has been considerable interest in studying the evolution of network topology across species, less attention has been paid to the relationship between network position and patterns of molecular evolution. Here, we generated coexpression networks from publicly available expression data for seven flowering plant taxa (Arabidopsis thaliana, Glycine max, Oryza sativa, Populus spp., Solanum lycopersicum, Vitis spp., and Zea mays) to investigate the relationship between network position and rates of molecular evolution. We found a significant negative correlation between network connectivity and rates of molecular evolution, with more highly connected (i.e., "hub") genes having significantly lower nonsynonymous substitution rates and dN/dS ratios compared to less highly connected (i.e., "peripheral") genes across the taxa surveyed. These findings suggest that more centrally located hub genes are, on average, subject to higher levels of evolutionary constraint than are genes located on the periphery of gene coexpression networks. The consistency of this result across disparate taxa suggests that it holds for flowering plants in general, as opposed to being a species-specific phenomenon.