Meeting Abstract

P3.92  Thursday, Jan. 6  Remarkably large repertoires of V1R pheromone receptors in strepsirrhine primates CHAN, Lauren M*; YODER, Anne D.; Duke University; Duke University lauren.chan@duke.edu

The mammalian genome contains hundreds of odorant (OR) and pheromone (V1R and V2R) receptors thought to improve detection and discrimination of chemical cues. Huge variation in repertoire size across taxa suggests that chemosensory detection is not equally important to all taxa and patterns of expansion and contraction in these gene families have been hypothesized to be the result of evolutionary shifts in ecology, and hence, patterns of selection. One long-standing hypothesis proposes that selection for acute olfactory perception is reduced with the evolution of trichromatic vision; specifically, we expect to see a decrease in the size of functional OR and VR repertoires and a concomitant increase in OR pseudogenes. Studies examining OR repertoires in primates have found only weak support for this hypothesis. In contrast, results from mined genomes indicate that V1R repertoires are large and diverse in two nocturnal strepsirrhine primates, but are absent or extremely small (> 10 intact copies) among diurnal haplorrhine species. We isolated V1R genes via de novo sequencing for multiple non-model species of strepsirrhine primates representing the range of phylogenetic, behavioral, and life history diversity in this clade. We find surprisingly large V1R repertoires in the majority of these species and discuss our results in light of organismal ecology as well as species diversity and patterns of selection.