Heteromorphic sex chromosomes determine males and females in many species and their study is of general interest. Understanding the biases in the generation of genes and functions with respect to sex chromosomes is of primary significance to explaining sexual dimorphism and sex chromosome evolution. The sex chromosomes are found to differentiate from a pair of autosomes;most of the Y chromosome degenerates, and the X chromosome develops dosage compensation. Two main types of biases in the generation of duplicates in relation to sex chromosomes have been observed (in human, mouse and D. melanogaster): new genes are recruited by the Y chromosome and duplicates escape the X chromosome. In particular, retroposition has revealed the directionality of the duplication and has helped us to reveal duplicates that escape the X chromosome. Many of these new duplicate genes have male specific function. So the bias in their location and expression pattern reveals that significant positive selection takes place when those genes become fixed in the population and when they acquire a gender specific promoter. This project proposes two objectives: [1] to study the function and role of selection in retrogenes newly relocated from X to autosome in D. melanogaster, and [2] to study how the acquisition of male specific promoter regions takes place in these newly relocated retrogenes in Drosophila. Data of polymorphism and divergence at the nucleotide level, mRNA expression information, P element transformation technology, homologous recombination, direct mutagenesis and the most up to date bioinformatics tools and molecular evolution software will be exploited to achieve these two objectives.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
3R01GM071813-05S1
Application #
7904458
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-GVE (01))
Program Officer
Eckstrand, Irene A
Project Start
2009-08-31
Project End
2011-04-30
Budget Start
2009-08-31
Budget End
2011-04-30
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$83,286
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Texas Arlington
Department
Biology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
064234610
City
Arlington
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
76019
Eslamieh, Mohammadmehdi; Williford, Anna; Betrán, Esther (2017) Few Nuclear-Encoded Mitochondrial Gene Duplicates Contribute to Male Germline-Specific Functions in Humans. Genome Biol Evol 9:2782-2790
Casola, Claudio; Betrán, Esther (2017) The Genomic Impact of Gene Retrocopies: What Have We Learned from Comparative Genomics, Population Genomics, and Transcriptomic Analyses? Genome Biol Evol 9:1351-1373
Jangam, Diwash; Feschotte, Cédric; Betrán, Esther (2017) Transposable Element Domestication As an Adaptation to Evolutionary Conflicts. Trends Genet 33:817-831
Gallach, Miguel; Betrán, Esther (2016) Dosage Compensation and the Distribution of Sex-Biased Gene Expression in Drosophila: Considerations and Genomic Constraints. J Mol Evol 82:199-206
Betrán, Esther (2015) The ""life histories"" of genes. J Mol Evol 80:186-8
Guillén, Yolanda; Rius, Núria; Delprat, Alejandra et al. (2014) Genomics of ecological adaptation in cactophilic Drosophila. Genome Biol Evol 7:349-66
Sorourian, Mehran; Kunte, Mansi M; Domingues, Susana et al. (2014) Relocation facilitates the acquisition of short cis-regulatory regions that drive the expression of retrogenes during spermatogenesis in Drosophila. Mol Biol Evol 31:2170-80
Calvete, Oriol; González, Josefa; Betrán, Esther et al. (2012) Segmental duplication, microinversion, and gene loss associated with a complex inversion breakpoint region in Drosophila. Mol Biol Evol 29:1875-89
Gallach, Miguel; Domingues, Susana; Betrán, Esther (2011) Gene duplication and the genome distribution of sex-biased genes. Int J Evol Biol 2011:989438
Hosken, David J (2011) Gene duplication might not resolve intralocus sexual conflict. Trends Ecol Evol 26:556-7; author reply 558-9

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