Evolutionary principles of modular gene regulation in yeasts.

Divergence in gene regulation can play a major role in evolution. Here, we used a phylogenetic framework to measure mRNA profiles in 15 yeast species from the phylum Ascomycota and reconstruct the evolution of their modular regulatory programs along a time course of growth on glucose over 300 million years [corrected]. We found that modules have diverged proportionally to phylogenetic distance, with prominent changes in gene regulation accompanying changes in lifestyle and ploidy, especially in carbon metabolism.