Avian W and mammalian Y chromosomes convergently retained dosage-sensitive regulators
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Author(s)
Skaletsky, Helen
Cho, Ting-Jan
Brown, Laura
Locke, Devin
Chen, Nancy
Galkina, Svetlana
Pyntikova, Tatyana
Koutseva, Natalia
Graves, Tina
Kremitzki, Colin
Date Issued
January 2017
Journal
Nature Genetics
Publisher
Springer Nature
Citation
Bellott, Daniel W et al. “Avian W and Mammalian Y Chromosomes Convergently Retained Dosage-Sensitive Regulators.” Nature Genetics 49, 3 (January 2017): 387–394
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
After birds diverged from mammals, different ancestral autosomes evolved into sex chromosomes in each lineage. In birds, females are ZW and males are ZZ, but in mammals females are XX and males are XY. We sequenced the chicken W chromosome, compared its gene content with our reconstruction of the ancestral autosomes, and followed the evolutionary trajectory of ancestral W-linked genes across birds. Avian W chromosomes evolved in parallel with mammalian Y chromosomes, preserving ancestral genes through selection to maintain the dosage of broadly expressed regulators of key cellular processes. We propose that, like the human Y chromosome, the chicken W chromosome is essential for embryonic viability of the heterogametic sex. Unlike other sequenced sex chromosomes, the chicken W chromosome did not acquire and amplify genes specifically expressed in reproductive tissues. We speculate that the pressures that drive the acquisition of reproduction-related genes on sex chromosomes may be specific to the male germ line.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/NG.3778
