TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence for dosage compensation in coccinia grandis, a plant with a highly heteromorphic xy system
AU - Fruchard, Cécile
AU - Badouin, Hélène
AU - Latrasse, David
AU - Devani, Ravi S.
AU - Muyle, Aline
AU - Rhoné, Bénédicte
AU - Renner, Susanne S.
AU - Banerjee, Anjan K.
AU - Bendahmane, Abdelhafid
AU - Marais, Gabriel A.B.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2020/7
Y1 - 2020/7
N2 - About 15,000 angiosperms are dioecious, but the mechanisms of sex determination in plants remain poorly understood. In particular, how Y chromosomes evolve and degenerate, and whether dosage compensation evolves as a response, are matters of debate. Here, we focus on Coccinia grandis, a dioecious cucurbit with the highest level of X/Y heteromorphy recorded so far. We identified sex‐linked genes using RNA sequences from a cross and a model‐based method termed SEX‐DETector. Parents and F1 individuals were genotyped, and the transmission patterns of SNPs were then analyzed. In the >1300 sex‐linked genes studied, maximum X‐Y divergence was 0.13–0.17, and substantial Y degeneration is implied by an average Y/X expression ratio of 0.63 and an inferred gene loss on the Y of ~40%. We also found reduced Y gene expression being compensated by elevated expression of corresponding genes on the X and an excess of sex‐biased genes on the sex chromosomes. Molecular evolution of sex‐linked genes in C. grandis is thus comparable to that in Silene latifolia, another dioecious plant with a strongly heteromorphic XY system, and cucurbits are the fourth plant family in which dosage compensation is described, suggesting it might be common in plants.
AB - About 15,000 angiosperms are dioecious, but the mechanisms of sex determination in plants remain poorly understood. In particular, how Y chromosomes evolve and degenerate, and whether dosage compensation evolves as a response, are matters of debate. Here, we focus on Coccinia grandis, a dioecious cucurbit with the highest level of X/Y heteromorphy recorded so far. We identified sex‐linked genes using RNA sequences from a cross and a model‐based method termed SEX‐DETector. Parents and F1 individuals were genotyped, and the transmission patterns of SNPs were then analyzed. In the >1300 sex‐linked genes studied, maximum X‐Y divergence was 0.13–0.17, and substantial Y degeneration is implied by an average Y/X expression ratio of 0.63 and an inferred gene loss on the Y of ~40%. We also found reduced Y gene expression being compensated by elevated expression of corresponding genes on the X and an excess of sex‐biased genes on the sex chromosomes. Molecular evolution of sex‐linked genes in C. grandis is thus comparable to that in Silene latifolia, another dioecious plant with a strongly heteromorphic XY system, and cucurbits are the fourth plant family in which dosage compensation is described, suggesting it might be common in plants.
KW - Cucurbits
KW - Dioecy
KW - Sex chromosomes
KW - Sex‐biased genes
KW - Y degeneration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087873521&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/genes11070787
DO - 10.3390/genes11070787
M3 - Article
C2 - 32668777
AN - SCOPUS:85087873521
SN - 2073-4425
VL - 11
SP - 1
EP - 18
JO - Genes
JF - Genes
IS - 7
M1 - 787
ER -