title: The contribution of female meiotic drive to the evolution of neo-sex chromosomes.
abstract: Sex chromosomes undergo rapid turnover in certain taxonomic groups. One of the mechanisms of sex chromosome turnover involves fusions between sex chromosomes and autosomes. Sexual antagonism, heterozygote advantage, and genetic drift have been proposed as the drivers for the fixation of this evolutionary event. However, all empirical patterns of the prevalence of multiple sex chromosome systems across different taxa cannot be simply explained by these three mechanisms. In this study, we propose that female meiotic drive may contribute to the evolution of neo-sex chromosomes. The results of this study showed that in mammals, the XY(1) Y(2)  sex chromosome system is more prevalent in species with karyotypes of more biarmed chromosomes, whereas the X(1) X(2) Y sex chromosome system is more prevalent in species with predominantly acrocentric chromosomes. In species where biarmed chromosomes are favored by female meiotic drive, X-autosome fusions (XY(1) Y(2)  sex chromosome system) will be also favored by female meiotic drive. In contrast, in species with more acrocentric chromosomes, Y-autosome fusions (X(1) X(2) Y sex chromosome system) will be favored just because of the biased mutation rate toward chromosomal fusions. Further consideration should be given to female meiotic drive as a mechanism in the fixation of neo-sex chromosomes.
authors.affiliation: Ecological Genetics Laboratory, Center for Frontier Research, National Institute of Genetics, Yata 1111, Mishima, Shizuoka 411-8540, Japan.
authors.forename: Kohta
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kitano
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D008322:Mammals / Q000235:genetics*; D008540:Meiosis; D012730:Sex Chromosomes; D019849:Sex Determination Processes