TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ritter, Ashlyn D.
A1  - Shen, Yuan
A1  - Fuxman Bass, Juan
A1  - Jeyaraj, Sankarganesh
A1  - Deplancke, Bart
A1  - Mukhopadhyay, Arnab
A1  - Xu, Jian
A1  - Driscoll, Monica
A1  - Tissenbaum, Heidi A.
A1  - Walhout, Albertha J.M.
T1  - Complex expression dynamics and robustness in C. elegans insulin networks
Y1  - 2013/06/01 
JF  - Genome Research 
JO  - Genome Research 
SP  - 954 
EP  - 965 
DO  - 10.1101/gr.150466.112 
VL  - 23 
IS  - 6 
UR  - http://genome.cshlp.org/content/23/6/954.abstract 
N2  - Gene families expand by gene duplication, and resulting paralogs diverge through mutation. Functional diversification can include neofunctionalization as well as subfunctionalization of ancestral functions. In addition, redundancy in which multiple genes fulfill overlapping functions is often maintained. Here, we use the family of 40 Caenorhabditis elegans insulins to gain insight into the balance between specificity and redundancy. The insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IIS) pathway comprises a single receptor, DAF-2. To date, no single insulin-like peptide recapitulates all DAF-2-associated phenotypes, likely due to redundancy between insulin-like genes. To provide a first-level annotation of potential patterns of redundancy, we comprehensively delineate the spatiotemporal and conditional expression of all 40 insulins in living animals. We observe extensive dynamics in expression that can explain the lack of simple patterns of pairwise redundancy. We propose a model in which gene families evolve to attain differential alliances in different tissues and in response to a range of environmental stresses. 
ER  -