No evidence for a second evolutionary stratum during the early evolution of mammalian sex chromosomes

PLoS One. 2012;7(10):e45488. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0045488. Epub 2012 Oct 19.

Abstract

Mammalian sex chromosomes originated from a pair of autosomes, and homologous genes on the sex chromosomes (gametologs) differentiated through recombination arrest between the chromosomes. It was hypothesized that this differentiation in eutherians took place in a stepwise fashion and left a footprint on the X chromosome termed "evolutionary strata." The evolutionary stratum hypothesis claims that strata 1 and 2 (which correspond to the first two steps of chromosomal differentiation) were generated in the stem lineage of Theria or before the divergence between eutherians and marsupials. However, this prediction relied solely on the molecular clock hypothesis between pairs of human gametologs, and molecular evolution of marsupial sex chromosomal genes has not yet been investigated. In this study, we analyzed the following 7 pairs of marsupial gametologs, together with their eutherian orthologs that reside in stratum 1 or 2: SOX3/SRY, RBMX/Y, RPS4X/Y, HSFX/Y, XKRX/Y, SMCX/Y (KDM5C/D, JARID1C/D), and UBE1X/Y (UBA1/UBA1Y). Phylogenetic analyses and estimated divergence time of these gametologs reveal that they all differentiated at the same time in the therian ancestor. We have also provided strong evidence for gene conversion that occurred in the 3' region of the eutherian stratum 2 genes (SMCX/Y and UBE1X/Y). The results of the present study show that (1) there is no compelling evidence for the second stratum in the stem lineage of Theria; (2) gene conversion, which may have occurred between SMCX/Y and UBE1X/Y in the eutherian lineage, potentially accounts for their apparently lower degree of overall divergence.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • 3' Flanking Region
  • Animals
  • Biological Evolution*
  • Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone / genetics
  • Chromosomes, Mammalian*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mammals / genetics*
  • Marsupialia / genetics*
  • Phylogeny
  • Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
  • Sex Chromosomes*
  • Synteny
  • Ubiquitin-Activating Enzymes / genetics

Substances

  • Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone
  • Ubiquitin-Activating Enzymes

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas (17018032; http://www.mext.go.jp/english/index.htm) and The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (http://www.soken.ac.jp/en/index.html). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.