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Allelic Variation in Malawi Cichlid Opsins: A Tale of Two Genera

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Abstract

The role of sequence variation in the spectral tuning of color vision is well established in many systems. This includes the cichlids of Lake Victoria where sequence variation has been linked to environmental light gradients and speciation. The cichlids of Lake Malawi are a similar model for visual evolution, but the role of gene sequence variation in visual tuning between closely related species is unknown. This work describes such variation in multiple species of two rock-dwelling genera: Metriaclima and Labidochromis. Genomic DNA for seven cone opsin genes was sequenced and the structure of the opsin proteins was inferred. Retinal binding pocket polymorphisms were identified and compared to available data regarding spectral absorbance shifts. Sequence variation with known or potential effects on absorbance spectra were found in four genes: SWS1 (UV sensitive), SWS2B (violet sensitive), RH2Aβ (green sensitive), and LWS (red sensitive). Functional variation was distributed such that each genus had both a variable short-wavelength and long-wavelength sensitive opsin. This suggests spectral tuning is important at the margins of the cichlid visual spectrum. Further, there are two SWS1 opsin alleles that differ in sensitivity by 10 nm and are >2 MY divergent. One of these occurs in a haplotype block >1 kb. Potential haplotype blocks were found around the RH2 opsin loci. These data suggest that molecular diversification has resulted in functionally unique alleles and changes to the visual system. These data also suggest that opsin sequence variation tunes spectral sensitivities between closely related species and that the specific regions of spectral tuning are genus-specific.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NSF grant IOS0841270 and the University of Maryland. Thanks to Tyrone Spady for providing samples of Labidochromis. Special thanks to Chris Hofmann and Kelly O’Quin for technical assistance and discussions of experimental design. Special thanks as well to Ad Konings for generously providing pictures of fishes. We thank all members of the Kocher Lab at UMD as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Maryland, 1210 Biology-Psychology Building, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Adam R. Smith & Karen L. Carleton

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  1. Adam R. Smith
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Correspondence to Adam R. Smith.

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Smith, A.R., Carleton, K.L. Allelic Variation in Malawi Cichlid Opsins: A Tale of Two Genera. J Mol Evol 70, 593–604 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-010-9355-x

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