scholarly journals Evolutionary dynamics of the human pseudoautosomal regions

PLoS Genetics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. e1009532
Author(s):  
Bruno Monteiro ◽  
Miguel Arenas ◽  
Maria João Prata ◽  
António Amorim

Recombination between the X and Y human sex chromosomes is limited to the two pseudoautosomal regions (PARs) that present quite distinct evolutionary origins. Despite the crucial importance for male meiosis, genetic diversity patterns and evolutionary dynamics of these regions are poorly understood. In the present study, we analyzed and compared the genetic diversity of the PAR regions using publicly available genomic sequences encompassing both PAR1 and PAR2. Comparisons were performed through allele diversities, linkage disequilibrium status and recombination frequencies within and between X and Y chromosomes. In agreement with previous studies, we confirmed the role of PAR1 as a male-specific recombination hotspot, but also observed similar characteristic patterns of diversity in both regions although male recombination occurs at PAR2 to a much lower extent (at least one recombination event at PAR1 and in ≈1% in normal male meioses at PAR2). Furthermore, we demonstrate that both PARs harbor significantly different allele frequencies between X and Y chromosomes, which could support that recombination is not sufficient to homogenize the pseudoautosomal gene pool or is counterbalanced by other evolutionary forces. Nevertheless, the observed patterns of diversity are not entirely explainable by sexually antagonistic selection. A better understanding of such processes requires new data from intergenerational transmission studies of PARs, which would be decisive on the elucidation of PARs evolution and their role in male-driven heterosomal aneuploidies.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2376-2390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luohao Xu ◽  
Simon Yung Wa Sin ◽  
Phil Grayson ◽  
Scott V Edwards ◽  
Timothy B Sackton

Abstract Standard models of sex chromosome evolution propose that recombination suppression leads to the degeneration of the heterogametic chromosome, as is seen for the Y chromosome in mammals and the W chromosome in most birds. Unlike other birds, paleognaths (ratites and tinamous) possess large nondegenerate regions on their sex chromosomes (PARs or pseudoautosomal regions). It remains unclear why these large PARs are retained over >100 Myr, and how this retention impacts the evolution of sex chromosomes within this system. To address this puzzle, we analyzed Z chromosome evolution and gene expression across 12 paleognaths, several of whose genomes have recently been sequenced. We confirm at the genomic level that most paleognaths retain large PARs. As in other birds, we find that all paleognaths have incomplete dosage compensation on the regions of the Z chromosome homologous to degenerated portions of the W (differentiated regions), but we find no evidence for enrichments of male-biased genes in PARs. We find limited evidence for increased evolutionary rates (faster-Z) either across the chromosome or in differentiated regions for most paleognaths with large PARs, but do recover signals of faster-Z evolution in tinamou species with mostly degenerated W chromosomes, similar to the pattern seen in neognaths. Unexpectedly, in some species, PAR-linked genes evolve faster on average than genes on autosomes, suggested by diverse genomic features to be due to reduced efficacy of selection in paleognath PARs. Our analysis shows that paleognath Z chromosomes are atypical at the genomic level, but the evolutionary forces maintaining largely homomorphic sex chromosomes in these species remain elusive.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luohao Xu ◽  
Simon Yung Wa Sin ◽  
Phil Grayson ◽  
Scott V. Edwards ◽  
Timothy B. Sackton

AbstractStandard models of sex chromosome evolution propose that recombination suppression leads to the degeneration of the heterogametic chromosome, as is seen for the Y chromosome in mammals and the W chromosome in most birds. Unlike other birds, paleognaths (ratites and tinamous) possess large non-degenerate regions on their sex chromosomes (PARs or pseudoautosomal regions). It remains unclear why these large PARs are retained over more than 100 MY, and how this retention impacts the evolution of sex chromosomes within this system. To address this puzzle, we analysed Z chromosome evolution and gene expression across 12 paleognaths, several of whose genomes have recently been sequenced. We confirm at the genomic level that most paleognaths retain large PARs. As in other birds, we find that all paleognaths have incomplete dosage compensation on the regions of the Z chromosome homologous to degenerated portions of the W (differentiated regions or DRs), but we find no evidence for enrichments of male-biased genes in PARs. We find limited evidence for increased evolutionary rates (faster-Z) either across the chromosome or in DRs for most paleognaths with large PARs, but do recover signals of faster-Z evolution in tinamou species with mostly degenerated W chromosomes, similar to the pattern seen in neognaths. Unexpectedly, in some species PAR-linked genes evolve faster on average than genes on autosomes, suggested by diverse genomic features to be due to reduced efficacy of selection in paleognath PARs. Our analysis shows that paleognath Z chromosomes are atypical at the genomic level, but the evolutionary forces maintaining largely homomorphic sex chromosomes in these species remain elusive.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juraj Bergman ◽  
Mikkel Heide Schierup

The pseudoautosomal region 1 (PAR1) is a 2.7 Mb telomeric region of human sex chromosomes. As the largest point of contact between the X and Y, PAR1 has a crucial role in ensuring proper segregation of sex chromosomes during male meiosis, exposing it to extreme recombination and associated mutational processes. We investigate PAR1 evolution using population genomic datasets of extant humans, eight populations of great apes and two archaic human genome sequences. We find that the PAR1 sequence is closer to nucleotide equilibrium than autosomal telomeric sequences. We detect a difference between long-term substitution patterns and extant diversity in PAR1 that is mainly driven by the conflict between strong mutation and recombination-associated fixation bias at CpG sites. Additionally, we detect excess C→G mutations in PAR1 of all great ape species, specific to the mutagenic effect of male recombination. Analysis of differences between frequencies of alleles segregating in females and males provided no evidence for sexually antagonistic selection in this region. Furthermore, despite recent evidence for Y chromosome introgression from humans into Neanderthals, we find that the Neanderthal PAR1 retained similarity to the Denisovan sequence, as is the case for the X chromosome and the autosomes. Lastly, we study repeat content and double-strand break hotspot regions in PAR1 and find that they may play roles in ensuring the obligate X-Y recombination event during male meiosis. Our study provides an unprecedented quantification of population genetic forces and insight into evolutionary processes governing PAR1 biology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernardo Gutierrez ◽  
Emma L. Wise ◽  
Steven T. Pullan ◽  
Christopher H. Logue ◽  
Thomas A. Bowden ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The Amazon basin is home to numerous arthropod-borne viral pathogens that cause febrile disease in humans. Among these, Oropouche orthobunyavirus (OROV) is a relatively understudied member of the genus Orthobunyavirus, family Peribunyaviridae, that causes periodic outbreaks in human populations in Brazil and other South American countries. Although several studies have described the genetic diversity of the virus, the evolutionary processes that shape the OROV genome remain poorly understood. Here, we present a comprehensive study of the genomic dynamics of OROV that encompasses phylogenetic analysis, evolutionary rate estimates, inference of natural selective pressures, recombination and reassortment, and structural analysis of OROV variants. Our study includes all available published sequences, as well as a set of new OROV genome sequences obtained from patients in Ecuador, representing the first set of genomes from this country. Our results show differing evolutionary processes on the three segments that comprise the viral genome. We infer differing times of the most recent common ancestors of the genome segments and propose that this can be explained by cryptic reassortment. We also present the discovery of previously unobserved putative N-linked glycosylation sites, as well as codons that evolve under positive selection on the viral surface proteins, and discuss the potential role of these features in the evolution of OROV through a combined phylogenetic and structural approach. IMPORTANCE The emergence and reemergence of pathogens such as Zika virus, chikungunya virus, and yellow fever virus have drawn attention toward other cocirculating arboviruses in South America. Oropouche virus (OROV) is a poorly studied pathogen responsible for over a dozen outbreaks since the early 1960s and represents a public health burden to countries such as Brazil, Panama, and Peru. OROV is likely underreported since its symptomatology can be easily confounded with other febrile illnesses (e.g., dengue fever and leptospirosis) and point-of-care testing for the virus is still uncommon. With limited data, there is a need to optimize the information currently available. Analysis of OROV genomes can help us understand how the virus circulates in nature and can reveal the evolutionary forces that shape the genetic diversity of the virus, which has implications for molecular diagnostics and the design of potential vaccines.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Ana Santos-Pereira ◽  
Carlos Magalhães ◽  
Pedro M. M. Araújo ◽  
Nuno S. Osório

The already enormous burden caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) alone is aggravated by co-infection. Despite obvious differences in the rate of evolution comparing these two human pathogens, genetic diversity plays an important role in the success of both. The extreme evolutionary dynamics of HIV-1 is in the basis of a robust capacity to evade immune responses, to generate drug-resistance and to diversify the population-level reservoir of M group viral subtypes. Compared to HIV-1 and other retroviruses, M. tuberculosis generates minute levels of genetic diversity within the host. However, emerging whole-genome sequencing data show that the M. tuberculosis complex contains at least nine human-adapted phylogenetic lineages. This level of genetic diversity results in differences in M. tuberculosis interactions with the host immune system, virulence and drug resistance propensity. In co-infected individuals, HIV-1 and M. tuberculosis are likely to co-colonize host cells. However, the evolutionary impact of the interaction between the host, the slowly evolving M. tuberculosis bacteria and the HIV-1 viral “mutant cloud” is poorly understood. These evolutionary dynamics, at the cellular niche of monocytes/macrophages, are also discussed and proposed as a relevant future research topic in the context of single-cell sequencing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. De Kort ◽  
J. G. Prunier ◽  
S. Ducatez ◽  
O. Honnay ◽  
M. Baguette ◽  
...  

AbstractUnderstanding how biological and environmental factors interactively shape the global distribution of plant and animal genetic diversity is fundamental to biodiversity conservation. Genetic diversity measured in local populations (GDP) is correspondingly assumed representative for population fitness and eco-evolutionary dynamics. For 8356 populations across the globe, we report that plants systematically display much lower GDP than animals, and that life history traits shape GDP patterns both directly (animal longevity and size), and indirectly by mediating core-periphery patterns (animal fecundity and plant dispersal). Particularly in some plant groups, peripheral populations can sustain similar GDP as core populations, emphasizing their potential conservation value. We further find surprisingly weak support for general latitudinal GDP trends. Finally, contemporary rather than past climate contributes to the spatial distribution of GDP, suggesting that contemporary environmental changes affect global patterns of GDP. Our findings generate new perspectives for the conservation of genetic resources at worldwide and taxonomic-wide scales.


2001 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIKO KONDO ◽  
ERIKO NAGAO ◽  
HIROSHI MITANI ◽  
AKIHIRO SHIMA

In the medaka, Oryzias latipes, sex is determined chromosomally. The sex chromosomes differ from those of mammals in that the X and Y chromosomes are highly homologous. Using backcross panels for linkage analysis, we mapped 21 sequence tagged site (STS) markers on the sex chromosomes (linkage group 1). The genetic map of the sex chromosome was established using male and female meioses. The genetic length of the sex chromosome was shorter in male than in female meioses. The region where male recombination is suppressed is the region close to the sex-determining gene y, while female recombination was suppressed in both the telomeric regions. The restriction in recombination does not occur uniformly on the sex chromosome, as the genetic map distances of the markers are not proportional in male and female recombination. Thus, this observation seems to support the hypothesis that the heterogeneous sex chromosomes were derived from suppression of recombination between autosomal chromosomes. In two of the markers, Yc-2 and Casp6, which were expressed sequence-tagged (EST) sites, polymorphisms of both X and Y chromosomes were detected. The alleles of the X and Y chromosomes were also detected in O. curvinotus, a species related to the medaka. These markers could be used for genotyping the sex chromosomes in the medaka and other species, and could be used in other studies on sex chromosomes.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn E. Holt ◽  
Florent Lassalle ◽  
Kelly L. Wyres ◽  
Ryan Wick ◽  
Rafal J. Mostowy

Bacterial capsules and lipopolysaccharides are diverse surface polysaccharides (SPs) that serve as the frontline for interactions with the outside world. While SPs can evolve rapidly, their diversity and evolutionary dynamics across different taxonomic scales has not been investigated in detail. Here, we focused on the bacterial order Enterobacteriales (including the medically-relevant Enterobacteriaceae), to carry out comparative genomics of two SP locus synthesis regions, cps and kps, using 27,334 genomes from 45 genera. We identified high-quality cps loci in 22 genera and kps in 11 genera, around 4% of which were detected in multiple species. We found SP loci to be highly dynamic genetic entities: their evolution was driven by high rates of horizontal gene transfer (HGT), both of whole loci and component genes, and relaxed purifying selection, yielding large repertoires of SP diversity. In spite of that, we found the presence of (near-)identical locus structures in distant taxonomic backgrounds that could not be explained by recent exchange, pointing to long-term selective preservation of locus structures in some populations. Our results reveal differences in evolutionary dynamics driving SP diversity within different bacterial species, with lineages of Escherichia coli, Enterobacter hormachei and Klebsiella aerogenes most likely to share SP loci via recent exchange; and lineages of Salmonella enterica, Citrobacter sakazakii and Serratia marcescens most likely to share SP loci via other mechanisms such as long-term preservation. Overall, the evolution of SP loci in Enterobacteriales is driven by a range of evolutionary forces and their dynamics and relative importance varies between different species.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Cotter ◽  
Timothy H. Webster ◽  
Melissa A. Wilson

AbstractMutation, recombination, selection, and demography affect genetic variation across the genome. Increased mutation and recombination both lead to increases in genetic diversity in a region-specific manner, while complex demographic patterns shape patterns of diversity on a more global scale. The X chromosome is particularly interesting because it contains several distinct regions that are subject to different combinations and strengths of these processes, notably the pseudoautosomal regions (PARs) and the X-transposed region (XTR). The X chromosome thus can serve as a unique model for studying how genetic and demographic forces act in different contexts to shape patterns of observed variation. Here we investigate diversity, divergence, and linkage disequilibrium in each region of the X chromosome using genomic data from 26 human populations. We find that both diversity and substitution rate are consistently elevated in PAR1 and the XTR compared to the rest of the X chromosome. In contrast, linkage disequilibrium is lowest in PAR1 and highest on the non-recombining X chromosome, with the XTR falling in between, suggesting that the XTR (usually included in the non-recombining X) may need to be considered separately in future studies. We also observed strong population-specific effects on genetic diversity; not only does genetic variation differ on the X and autosomes among populations, but the effects of linked selection on the X relative to autosomes have been shaped by population-specific history. The substantial variation in patterns of variation across these regions provides insight into the unique evolutionary history contained within the X chromosome.Significance StatementDemography and selection affect the X chromosome differently from non-sex chromosomes. However, the X chromosome can be subdivided into multiple distinct regions that facilitate even more fine-scaled assessment of these processes. Here we study regions of the human X chromosome in 26 populations to find evidence that recombination may be mutagenic in humans and that the X-transposed region may undergo recombination. Further we observe that the effects of selection and demography act differently on the X chromosome relative to the autosomes across human populations. Together, our results highlight profound regional differences across the X chromosome, simultaneously making it an ideal system for exploring the action of evolutionary forces as well as necessitating its careful consideration and treatment in genomic analyses.


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