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 - Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), grant ANR‐14‐CE19‐0021‐01 to G.A.B.M. and A.B., D.L. and A.B. also acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC), ERC Advanced Grant SEXYPARTH.
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 -