Genes Offer New Clues in Old Debate on Species’ Origins - NYTimes.com

Genes Offer New Clues in Old Debate on Species’ Origins - NYTimes.com

"On Friday, Daven Presgraves, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Rochester, and colleagues published a paper in the journal Science identifying the latest such gene to be discovered. It is the second one that the team has found in fruit flies. The newly discovered gene, Nup 160, like its predecessor, Nup 96, causes reproductive isolation between the species Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans.

"Unexpectedly, the genes both produce proteins that are part of a large piece of cellular machinery known as the nuclear pore complex, a gateway that controls what molecules move into and out of the nucleus. It is still unclear why, in what Dr. Presgraves describes as a blind search for genes that cause problems in hybrids, his team twice pulled out genes involved in the nuclear pore complex or why the complex might be particularly important in the evolution of reproductive isolation.

"“The question is,” said Douglas Futuyma, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, “what the hell does this have to do with hybrid sterility?”"

Interesting...