Complex evolutionary trajectories of sex chromosomes across bird taxa
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
Sex-specific chromosomes, like the W of most female birds and the Y of male mammals, usually have lost most genes owing to a lack of recombination.We analyze newly available genomes of 17 bird species representing the avian phylogenetic range, and find that more than half of them do not have as fully degenerated W chromosomes as that of chicken. We show that avian sex chromosomes harbor tremendous diversity among species in their composition of pseudoautosomal regions and degree of Z/W differentiation. Punctuated events of shared or lineage-specific recombination suppression have produced a gradient of "evolutionary strata" along the Z chromosome, which initiates from the putative avian sex-determining gene DMRT1 and ends at the pseudoautosomal region.W-linked genes are subject to ongoing functional decay after recombination was suppressed, and the tempo of degeneration slows down in older strata. Overall, we unveil a complex history of avian sex chromosome evolution.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Artikelnummer | 1246338 |
Tidsskrift | Science |
Vol/bind | 346 |
Udgave nummer | 6215 |
Antal sider | 8 |
ISSN | 0036-8075 |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2014 |
ID: 129542408