Evolution of sex determination and heterogamety changes in section Otites of the genus Silene

• Published in: Scientific reports 2019-01, Vol.9 (1), p.1045-1045, Article 1045
• Main Authors: Balounova, Veronika, Gogela, Roman, Cegan, Radim, Cangren, Patrik, Zluvova, Jitka, Safar, Jan, Kovacova, Viera, Bergero, Roberta, Hobza, Roman, Vyskot, Boris, Oxelman, Bengt, Charlesworth, Deborah, Janousek, Bohuslav
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 1978; 38/71; 38/77; 38/90; 38/91; 45/22; 45/23; 45/29; 631/181/2474; 631/208/2491; 631/449/2669; alignment; american naturalist; arlesworth b; Biological Sciences; Biologiska vetenskaper; Chromosomes; dioecious plant; early events; Evolution; female; Females; Gene mapping; Genetic analysis; genome structure; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hybridization; latifolia; male-sterility; multidisciplinary; Mutation; Otites; p975; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; rna; Science; Science & Technology - Other Topics; Science (multidisciplinary); Sex chromosomes; Sex determination; Sex linkage; Silene; Species; strawberry; v112; wild; y-chromosome
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-37412-x

Switches in heterogamety are known to occur in both animals and plants. Although plant sex determination systems probably often evolved more recently than those in several well-studied animals, including mammals, and have had less time for switches to occur, we previously detected a switch in heterogamety in the plant genus Silene : section Otites has both female and male heterogamety, whereas S . latifolia and its close relatives, in a different section of the genus, Melandrium (subgenus Behenantha ), all have male heterogamety. Here we analyse the evolution of sex chromosomes in section Otites , which is estimated to have evolved only about 0.55 MYA. Our study confirms female heterogamety in S . otites and newly reveals female heterogamety in S . borysthenica . Sequence analyses and genetic mapping show that the sex-linked regions of these two species are the same, but the region in S . colpophylla , a close relative with male heterogamety, is different. The sex chromosome pairs of S . colpophylla and S . otites each correspond to an autosome of the other species, and both differ from the XY pair in S . latifolia . Silene section Otites species are suitable for detailed studies of the events involved in such changes, and our phylogenetic analysis suggests a possible change from female to male heterogamety within this section. Our analyses suggest a possibility that has so far not been considered, change in heterogamety through hybridization, in which a male-determining chromosome from one species is introgressed into another one, and over-rides its previous sex-determining system.