title: The pioneering role of PRDM9 indel mutations in tarsier evolution.
abstract: PRDM9 is currently the sole speciation gene found in vertebrates causing hybrid sterility probably due to incompatible alleles. Its role in defining the double strand break loci during the meiotic prophase I is crucial for proper chromosome segregation. Therefore, the rapid turnover of the loci determining zinc finger array seems to be causative for incompatibilities. We here investigated the zinc finger domain-containing exon of PRDM9 in 23 tarsiers. Tarsiers, the most basal extant haplorhine primates, exhibit two frameshifting indels at the 5'-end of the array. The first mutation event interrupts the reading frame and function while the second compensates both. The fixation of this allele variant in tarsiers led to hypothesize that de- and reactivation of the zinc finger domain drove the speciation in early haplorhine or tarsiiform primates. Moreover, the high allelic diversity within Tarsius points to multiple effects of genetic drift reflecting their phylogeographic history since the Miocene.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Anselm-Franz-von-Bentzel-Weg 7, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Sacha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Heerschop
authors.affiliation: Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Anselm-Franz-von-Bentzel-Weg 7, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zischler
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Rosenstein 1, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Merker
authors.affiliation: Primate Research Center, Bogor Agricultural University, Jalan Lodaya II/5, Bogor 16151, Indonesia.|Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor 16680, Indonesia.
authors.forename: Dyah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Perwitasari-Farajallah
authors.affiliation: Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Anselm-Franz-von-Bentzel-Weg 7, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Driller
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D011495:Histone-Lysine N-Methyltransferase / Q000235:genetics*; D054643:INDEL Mutation; D000072417:Protein Domains; D016699:Tarsiidae / Q000235:genetics*; D016335:Zinc Fingers
chemical_list: D011495:Histone-Lysine N-Methyltransferase