Data from: P53 gene discriminates two ecologically divergent sister species of pine voles

Genes with relevant roles in the differentiation of closely-related
species are likely to have diverged simultaneously with the species and
more accurately reproduce the species tree. The Lusitanian (Microtus
lusitanicus) and Mediterranean (M. duodecimcostatus) pine voles are two
recently separated sister species with fossorial lifestyles whose
different ecological, physiological and morphological phenotypes reflect
the better adaptation of M. duodecimcostatus to the underground habitat.
Here we asked whether the differentiation of M. lusitanicus and M.
duodecimcostatus involved genetic variations within the tumour suppressor
p53 gene, given its role in stress-associated responses. We performed a
population-genetic analysis through sequencing of exons and introns of p53
in individuals from sympatric and allopatric populations of both the
species in the Iberian Peninsula in which a unidirectional introgression
of mitochondrial DNA was previously observed. We were able to discriminate
the two species to a large extent. We show that M. duodecimcostatus is
composed of one genetically unstructured group of populations sharing a
P53 protein that carries a mutation in the DNA-binding region not observed
in M. lusitanicus, raising the possibility that this mutation may have
been central in the evolutionary history of M. duodecimcostatus. Our
results provide suggestive evidence for the involvement of a master
transcription factor in the separation of M. lusitanicus and M.
duodecimcostatus during Microtus radiation in the Quaternary presumably
via a differential adaptive role of the novel p53 in M. duodecimcostatus.