Federica Bernardini
Cross-Species Y Chromosome Function Between Malaria Vectors of the Anopheles gambiae Species Complex
Bernardini, Federica; Galizi, Roberto; Wunderlich, Mariana; Taxiarchi, Chrysanthi; Kranjc, Nace; Kyrou, Kyros; Hammond, Andrew; Nolan, Tony; Lawniczak, Mara N K; Aris Papathanos, Philippos; Crisanti, Andrea; Windbichler, Nikolai
Authors
Roberto Galizi r.galizi@keele.ac.uk
Mariana Wunderlich
Chrysanthi Taxiarchi
Nace Kranjc
Kyros Kyrou
Andrew Hammond
Tony Nolan
Mara N K Lawniczak
Philippos Aris Papathanos
Andrea Crisanti
Nikolai Windbichler
Abstract
Y chromosome function, structure and evolution is poorly understood in many species, including the Anopheles genus of mosquitoes-an emerging model system for studying speciation that also represents the major vectors of malaria. While the Anopheline Y had previously been implicated in male mating behavior, recent data from the Anopheles gambiae complex suggests that, apart from the putative primary sex-determiner, no other genes are conserved on the Y. Studying the functional basis of the evolutionary divergence of the Y chromosome in the gambiae complex is complicated by complete F1 male hybrid sterility. Here, we used an F1 × F0 crossing scheme to overcome a severe bottleneck of male hybrid incompatibilities that enabled us to experimentally purify a genetically labeled A. gambiae Y chromosome in an A. arabiensis background. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) confirmed that the A. gambiae Y retained its original sequence content in the A. arabiensis genomic background. In contrast to comparable experiments in Drosophila, we find that the presence of a heterospecific Y chromosome has no significant effect on the expression of A. arabiensis genes, and transcriptional differences can be explained almost exclusively as a direct consequence of transcripts arising from sequence elements present on the A. gambiae Y chromosome itself. We find that Y hybrids show no obvious fertility defects, and no substantial reduction in male competitiveness. Our results demonstrate that, despite their radically different structure, Y chromosomes of these two species of the gambiae complex that diverged an estimated 1.85 MYA function interchangeably, thus indicating that the Y chromosome does not harbor loci contributing to hybrid incompatibility. Therefore, Y chromosome gene flow between members of the gambiae complex is possible even at their current level of divergence. Importantly, this also suggests that malaria control interventions based on sex-distorting Y drive would be transferable, whether intentionally or contingent, between the major malaria vector species.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Aug 21, 2017 |
Publication Date | Aug 31, 2017 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 29, 2024 |
Journal | Genetics |
Print ISSN | 0016-6731 |
Publisher | Genetics Society of America |
Pages | 729 - 740 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.117.300221 |
Keywords | cross-species, y chromosomnme, malaria, anopheles gambiae |
Publisher URL | https://www.genetics.org/content/207/2/729 |
Files
Cross-Species Y Chromosome Function Between Malaria Vectors of the Anopheles gambiae Species Complex.pdf
(1.4 Mb)
PDF
Publisher Licence URL
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
You might also like
qSanger: Quantification of Genetic Variants in Bacterial Cultures by Sanger Sequencing
(2023)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Keele Repository
Administrator e-mail: research.openaccess@keele.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search