{"doi":"10.1098/rspb.2023.1686","title":"Jaw size variation is associated with a novel craniofacial function for galanin receptor 2 in an adaptive radiation of pupfishes","abstract":"Understanding the genetic basis of novel adaptations in new species is a fundamental question in biology. Here we demonstrate a new role for galr2 in vertebrate craniofacial development using an adaptive radiation of trophic specialist pupfishes endemic to San Salvador Island, Bahamas. We confirmed the loss of a putative Sry transcription factor binding site upstream of galr2 in scale-eating pupfish and found significant spatial differences in galr2 expression among pupfish species in Meckel's cartilage using in situ hybridization chain reaction (HCR). We then experimentally demonstrated a novel role for Galr2 in craniofacial development by exposing embryos to Garl2-inhibiting drugs. Galr2-inhibition reduced Meckel's cartilage length and increased chondrocyte density in both trophic specialists but not in the generalist genetic background. We propose a mechanism for jaw elongation in scale-eaters based on the reduced expression of galr2 due to the loss of a putative Sry binding site. Fewer Galr2 receptors in the scale-eater Meckel's cartilage may result in their enlarged jaw lengths as adults by limiting opportunities for a circulating Galr2 agonist to bind to these receptors during development. Our findings illustrate the growing utility of linking candidate adaptive SNPs in non-model systems with highly divergent phenotypes to novel vertebrate gene functions.","journal":"Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences","year":2023,"id":373675,"datarank":0.26876392038420827,"base_score":1.791759469228055,"endowment":1.791759469228055,"self_citation_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9557,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"figshare":["10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6879612"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1135384,"name":"Vanessa Muhl","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":560236,"name":"Emilie J. Richards","orcid":"0000-0003-2734-6020","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":362156,"name":"Craig T. Miller","orcid":"0000-0002-1970-8389","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":392561,"name":"Christopher H. Martin","orcid":"0000-0001-7989-9124","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338795,"name":"M. Fernanda Palominos","orcid":"0000-0001-8486-4516","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":100,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:16:07.080027Z","pmid":"37876194","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}