Tracing back the nascence of a new sex-determination pathway to the ancestor of bees and ants

Sandra Schmieder, Dominique Colinet and Marylène Poirié ()
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Sandra Schmieder: INRA, UMR 1355 Institut Sophia Agrobiotech (ISA), Evolution and Specificity of Multitrophic Interactions (ESIM)
Dominique Colinet: INRA, UMR 1355 Institut Sophia Agrobiotech (ISA), Evolution and Specificity of Multitrophic Interactions (ESIM)
Marylène Poirié: INRA, UMR 1355 Institut Sophia Agrobiotech (ISA), Evolution and Specificity of Multitrophic Interactions (ESIM)

Nature Communications, 2012, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract In several Hymenoptera, sexual fate is determined by the allelic composition at the complementary sex-determiner locus, a sex-determination mechanism that can strongly affect population dynamics. To date, the molecular identification of complementary sex determiner has only been achieved in the honeybee, where the complementary sex-determiner gene was reported to have arisen from duplication of the feminizer gene. Strikingly, the complementary sex-determiner gene was also proposed to be unique to the honeybee lineage. Here we identify feminizer and complementary sex-determiner orthologues in bumble bees and ants. We further demonstrate that the duplication of feminizer that produced complementary sex determiner occurred before the divergence of Aculeata species (~120 Myr ago). Finally, we provide evidence that the two genes evolved concertedly through gene conversion, complementary sex-determiner evolution being additionally shaped by mosaic patterns of selection. Thus, the complementary sex-determiner gene likely represents the molecular basis for single locus-complementary sex determination in the Aculeata infra-order, and possibly, in the entire Hymenoptera order.

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1898

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