In the classic view of evolution, organisms undergo random genetic mutations, and nature selects for the most beneficial ones. A recent study in Science adds a twist to that theory: variability already present in a population's genome may remain hidden in times of plenty but come unmasked in stressful situations, ready to help with adaptation. At the theory's core is a protein called HSP90.
The study's lead author, Harvard Medical School's Nicolas Rohner, tested the idea on the Mexican tetra, a river-dwelling fish. In the distant past, populations of Mexican tetra ended up in underwater caves, a new environment to which the fish adapted by losing their eyesight.
Rohner and his colleagues raised surface fish in water treated with an HSP90 blocker. Those fish, they found, had greater variations in eye and eye-socket sizes. Stressing surface fish with water chemically similar to cave water also yielded offspring with a greater than normal variety of eye sizes.
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The study's lead author, Harvard Medical School's Nicolas Rohner, tested the idea on the Mexican tetra, a river-dwelling fish. In the distant past, populations of Mexican tetra ended up in underwater caves, a new environment to which the fish adapted by losing their eyesight.
Rohner and his colleagues raised surface fish in water treated with an HSP90 blocker. Those fish, they found, had greater variations in eye and eye-socket sizes. Stressing surface fish with water chemically similar to cave water also yielded offspring with a greater than normal variety of eye sizes.
- More Here
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