British and Italian flies very different

Flies from England and Italy are completely different genetically, according to University of Leicester researchers.

This finding of the Department of Genetics at Leicester has shed new light on the genetic phenomenon.

The team has published its findings in two back-to-back papers in the journal Science which further develop a decade-old Leicester discovery.

The Leicester research relates to two important aspects of life: the 24-hour body clock known as the circadian cycle; and the seasonal cycle (hibernation), known as diapause in insects.

Professor Bambos Kyriacou and his team in Genetics found for the first time a connection between these two cycles in a single gene.

This gene, called timeless, was found to control the 24-hour rhythm of the fruit fly as well as its seasonal cycle.

Two version of the same gene

Professor Kyriacou said: "The story begins in 1997 with a discovery by Dr Ezio Rosato, now Reader in the Genetics department, but then a post-doc in my lab. He found that the timeless gene came in two different versions, L-tim and S-tim.

"In collaboration with Professor Rudi Costa’s group in Padova Italy, a study of natural European fly populations revealed that the L-tim variant was found predominantly in the south of Europe, and S-tim in the north.

"Dr Eran Tauber, now Lecturer in Genetics, but also formerly a post-doc in my laboratory, then showed that L-tim had been derived from S-tim by a mutation that occurred about 8,000 years ago in south eastern Italy, and then had spread by natural selection in all directions."

Professor Kyriacou explained that this occurred as a result of the different environments, particularly daylight conditions and temperature, between northern and southern Europe.

"These studies are important, not just because they show that the timeless gene connects the two major biological cycles on our planet, but as a pretty complete evolutionary story," he said. 

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