Journal
TRENDS IN GENETICS
Volume 36, Issue 10, Pages 728-738Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2020.06.008
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Funding
- Australian Research Council [DP170101147, DP180100931]
- Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [CGL2017-83802-P]
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The Y has been described as a wimpy degraded relic of the X, with imminent demise should it lose sex-determining function. Why then has it persisted in almost all mammals? Here we present a novel mechanistic explanation for its evolutionary perseverance: the persistent Y hypothesis. The Y chromosome bears genes that act as their own judge, jury, and executioner in the tightly regulated meiotic surveillance pathways. These executioners are crucial for successful meiosis, yet need to be silenced during the meiotic sex chromosome inactivation window, otherwise germ cells die. Only rare transposition events to the X, where they remain subject to obligate meiotic silencing, are heritable, posing strong evolutionary constraint for the Y chromosome to persist.
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