Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 21, Pages 8207-8211Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1202721109
Keywords
experimental evolution; female heterogamety; sex chromosomes; Y chromosome; gene expression evolution
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Funding
- Wellcome Trust [090532/Z09/Z]
- MRC [G0900747 91070]
- Royal Society
- John Fell Fund
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- European Research Council [260233]
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/H002006/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- BBSRC [BB/H002006/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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The W chromosome is predicted to be subject to strong female-specific selection stemming from its female-limited inheritance and therefore should play an important role in female fitness traits. However, the overall importance of directional selection in shaping the W chromosome is unknown because of the powerful degradative forces that act to decay the nonrecombining sections of the genome. Here we greatly expand the number of known W-linked genes and assess the expression of the W chromosome after >100 generations of different female-specific selection regimens in different breeds of chicken and in the wild ancestor, the Red Jungle Fowl. Our results indicate that female-specific selection has a significant effect on W chromosome gene-expression patterns, with a strong convergent pattern of up-regulation associated with increased female-specific selection. Many of the transcriptional changes in the female-selected breeds are the product of positive selection, suggesting that selection is an important force in shaping the evolution of gene expression on the W chromosome, a finding consistent with both the importance of the W chromosome in female fertility and the haploid nature of the W. Taken together, these data provide evidence for the importance of the sex-limited chromosome in a female heterogametic species and show that sex specific selection can act to preserve sex-limited chromosomes from degrading forces.
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