PMC:1044830 / 7850-10139 JSONTXT

{"target":"http://pubannotation.org/docs/sourcedb/PMC/sourceid/1044830","sourcedb":"PMC","sourceid":"1044830","source_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/1044830","text":"Sex Chromosomes\nHeterochiasmy is a fast-evolving trait, and phylogenetic inertia does not satisfactorily explain its distribution. In contrast to achiasmy, we found that heterochiasmy is not influenced by the nature of the sex chromosomes. This is interesting, because it suggests that achiasmy and heterochiasmy are influenced by qualitatively different evolutionary forces, although they seem to differ only quantitatively. It would be useful to determine whether achiasmy evolved to reduce the average recombination rate or to change the relative amount of recombination between the sexes. The two situations may be discriminated by determining whether the homogametic sex in achiasmate species tends to recombine more than in closely related chiasmate species. Evidence for such compensation would indicate that achiasmy did not evolve to reduce the average recombination rate. In the absence of such compensation, however, achiasmy may simply reflect selection for tight linkage. In such a situation, we propose that Haldane-Huxley rule may be caused by the converse argument to the one previously considered: The presence of achiasmy only in the heterogametic sex may reflect selection to maintain nonzero recombination rate on X or Z chromosomes in the homogametic sex. In species in which the average autosomal recombination rate is selected against (i.e., towards a lower equilibrium value), loss-of-function (recombination) mutations with an effect restricted to one sex may spread only if they affect the heterogametic sex, because mutations suppressing recombination in the homogametic sex completely suppress recombination on the X or Z chromosome. The same argument applies to XO species and may explain why achiasmy is associated only with the heterogametic sex. In addition, this hypothesis does not require the existence of genes suppressing recombination between the sex chromosomes with autosomal pleiotropic effects. Under this hypothesis, there is no reason to find an effect of the presence of heteromorphic sex chromosome on the amount of heterochiasmy, as originally envisioned by Haldane and Huxley. Overall, this hypothesis would explain why heterochiasmy and achiasmy differ qualitatively and why we do not observe any effect of sex chromosomes on heterochiasmy.","divisions":[{"label":"title","span":{"begin":0,"end":15}}],"tracks":[]}