Convergent evolution of chicken Z and human X chromosomes by expansion and gene acquisition

Daniel W. Bellott, Helen Skaletsky, Tatyana Pyntikova, Elaine R. Mardis, Tina Graves, Colin Kremitzki, Laura G. Brown, Steve Rozen, Wesley C. Warren, Richard K. Wilson and David C. Page ()
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Daniel W. Bellott: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
Helen Skaletsky: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
Tatyana Pyntikova: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
Elaine R. Mardis: The Genome Center, Washington University School of Medicine
Tina Graves: The Genome Center, Washington University School of Medicine
Colin Kremitzki: The Genome Center, Washington University School of Medicine
Laura G. Brown: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
Steve Rozen: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
Wesley C. Warren: The Genome Center, Washington University School of Medicine
Richard K. Wilson: The Genome Center, Washington University School of Medicine
David C. Page: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA

Nature, 2010, vol. 466, issue 7306, 612-616

Abstract: Dynamic sex chromosomes Birds and mammals have distinct sex chromosomes. In birds, males have a pair of Z chromosomes and females a Z and a W. In mammals, males are XY and females XX. It has long been assumed that sex-chromosome evolution has involved dramatic modification of the sex-specific (W and Y) chromosomes but only modest changes to the Z and X chromosomes shared by the sexes. Not so, according to a new study reporting the sequence of the chicken Z chromosome and comparing it with the finished sequence of human X. The Z and X chromosomes have changed dramatically from the autosomal (non-sex) chromosomes that gave rise to them. And they seem to have followed convergent evolutionary trajectories, including the acquisition and amplification of testis-expressed gene families, despite having arisen independently from different portions of the ancestral genome.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1038/nature09172

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