Extensive gene conversion drives the concerted evolution of paralogous copies of the SRY gene in European rabbits.
The human Y chromosome consists of ampliconic genes, which are located in palindromes and undergo frequent gene conversion, and single-copy genes including the primary sex-determining locus, SRY. Here, we demonstrate that SRY is duplicated in a large palindrome in the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). Furthermore, we show through comparative sequencing that orthologous palindrome arms have diverged 0.40% between rabbit subspecies over at least 2 My, but paralogous palindrome arms have remained nearly identical. This provides clear evidence of gene conversion on the rabbit Y chromosome. Together with previous observations in humans, these results suggest that gene conversion is a general feature of the evolution of the mammalian Y chromosome.
CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, Campus Agrário de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal. geraldes@interchange.ubc.ca
Armando
A
Geraldes
Teri
T
Rambo
Rod A
RA
Wing
Nuno
N
Ferrand
Michael W
MW
Nachman
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005060:Europe; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005785:Gene Conversion / Q000235:genetics*; D018628:Gene Dosage / Q000235:genetics*; D024282:Genes, sry / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D055029:Inverted Repeat Sequences / Q000235:genetics; D009711:Nucleotides / Q000235:genetics; D011817:Rabbits / Q000235:genetics*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
D009711:Nucleotides