title: Masculinization of gene expression is associated with exaggeration of male sexual dimorphism.
abstract: Gene expression differences between the sexes account for the majority of sexually dimorphic phenotypes, and the study of sex-biased gene expression is important for understanding the genetic basis of complex sexual dimorphisms. However, it has been difficult to test the nature of this relationship due to the fact that sexual dimorphism has traditionally been conceptualized as a dichotomy between males and females, rather than an axis with individuals distributed at intermediate points. The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) exhibits just this sort of continuum, with dominant and subordinate males forming a gradient in male secondary sexual characteristics. This makes it possible for the first time to test the correlation between sex-biased gene expression and sexually dimorphic phenotypes, a relationship crucial to molecular studies of sexual selection and sexual conflict. Here, we show that subordinate male transcriptomes show striking multiple concordances with their relative phenotypic sexual dimorphism. Subordinate males were clearly male rather than intersex, and when compared to dominant males, their transcriptomes were simultaneously demasculinized for male-biased genes and feminized for female-biased genes across the majority of the transcriptome. These results provide the first evidence linking sexually dimorphic transcription and sexually dimorphic phenotypes. More importantly, they indicate that evolutionary changes in sexual dimorphism can be achieved by varying the magnitude of sex-bias in expression across a large proportion of the coding content of a genome.
authors: Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. marie.pointer@zoo.ox.ac.uk
authors: Marie A
authors: MA
authors: Pointer
authors: Peter W
authors: PW
authors: Harrison
authors: Alison E
authors: AE
authors: Wright
authors: Judith E
authors: JE
authors: Mank
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005260:Female; D015870:Gene Expression; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D008297:Male; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000235:genetics; D014422:Turkeys
references: Bioinformatics. 2004 Jun 12;20(9):1453-4
references: 14871861
references: BMC Bioinformatics. 2009 Feb 03;10:48
references: 19192299
references: PLoS Comput Biol. 2007 Mar 23;3(3):e39
references: 17381235
references: Science. 2003 Jun 13;300(5626):1742-5
references: 12805547
references: Bioinformatics. 2004 Nov 22;20(17):3246-8
references: 15180930
references: Trends Genet. 2005 Sep;21(9):495-9
references: 16039005
references: Am Nat. 2009 Feb;173(2):141-50
references: 20374139
references: Mol Ecol Resour. 2013 Jul;13(4):696-705
references: 23551815
references: PLoS Genet. 2008 Jun 20;4(6):e1000100
references: 18566661
references: Nat Biotechnol. 2007 Jan;25(1):117-24
references: 17187058
references: Mol Biol Evol. 2005 Jan;22(1):178-88
references: 15371532
references: BMC Bioinformatics. 2011 Apr 28;12:124
references: 21526987
references: Hum Mol Genet. 1997 Mar;6(3):397-402
references: 9147642
references: PLoS Biol. 2010 Sep 07;8(9):
references: 20838655
references: Mol Biol Evol. 2011 Apr;28(4):1381-92
references: 21172833
references: Genome Biol. 2009;10(3):R25
references: 19261174
references: Nucleic Acids Res. 2012 Jul;40(Web Server issue):W622-7
references: 22684630
references: Nature. 2007 Nov 8;450(7167):233-7
references: 17994089
references: J Hered. 2010 Mar-Apr;101 Suppl 1:S94-9
references: 20421329
references: Mol Ecol. 2008 Jun;17(12):3008-17
references: 18482257
references: Genome Biol Evol. 2012;4(11):1118-26
references: 23034217
references: Genome Res. 2006 Aug;16(8):995-1004
references: 16825664
references: PLoS One. 2011;6(6):e21572
references: 21738713
references: Mol Biol Evol. 2007 Aug;24(8):1586-91
references: 17483113
references: BMC Bioinformatics. 2011 Aug 04;12:323
references: 21816040
references: Genome Biol. 2010;11(10):R106
references: 20979621
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Oct 25;102(43):15545-50
references: 16199517
references: J Biol Chem. 1961 Feb;236:374-80
references: 13710736
references: Evolution. 2004 Feb;58(2):437-40
references: 15068360
references: Nat Rev Genet. 2007 Sep;8(9):689-98
references: 17680007
references: Nat Methods. 2008 Jul;5(7):621-8
references: 18516045
references: J Mol Biol. 2001 Nov 2;313(4):903-19
references: 11697912
references: Genetics. 2012 Dec;192(4):1433-45
references: 22997237
references: Mol Biol Evol. 2007 Dec;24(12):2698-706
references: 17893399
references: Evolution. 2009 Jun;63(6):1464-72
references: 19154378
references: Arch Biochem Biophys. 1955 Jan;54(1):121-8
references: 13229363
references: Mol Biol Evol. 2010 Jul;27(7):1570-8
references: 20142440
references: BMC Genomics. 2008 Mar 31;9:148
references: 18377635
references: Evolution. 2006 Jun;60(6):1311-6
references: 16892981
references: Nucleic Acids Res. 2012 Jan;40(Database issue):D84-90
references: 22086963
references: Bioinformatics. 2006 Jun 15;22(12):1540-2
references: 16595560
references: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2002 Aug;87(8):3808-13
references: 12161514
references: Nature. 2005 Mar 3;434(7029):69-72
references: 15744300
references: Genome Res. 2010 Apr;20(4):512-8
references: 20357053
references: J Theor Biol. 1964 Jul;7(1):1-16
references: 5875341