Project/Area Number |
15K14585
|
Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
|
Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
Research Field |
Evolutionary biology
|
Research Institution | Tokyo Metropolitan University (2016) National Institute of Genetics (2015) |
Principal Investigator |
|
Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
|
Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2016)
|
Budget Amount *help |
¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000)
Fiscal Year 2016: ¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
|
Keywords | 性染色体 / ショウジョウバエ / 次世代シーケンサー / Y染色体 / サイレンシング / ゲノム / トランスクリプトーム / 遺伝子退化 / 昆虫 / 染色体退化 / 遺伝子発現 |
Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Sex chromosomes derived from a pair of autosomes provide a stable sex-determination to organisms, but result in a massive loss of functional genes on the Y chromosome, which is potentially deleterious. Despite this complicated outcomes, organisms have repeatedly and independently acquired sex chromosomes during evolution. A promising approach to solve this “paradox” is to uncover the degeneration process of the Y. In this study, I determined the genome sequences of three Drosophila species that recently acquired sex chromosomes and those of their closely-related species, and clarified the degeneration process of these Y chromosomes. The analyses revealed that the extent of Y degeneration does not necessarily proportional to the Y age. This finding implies that the initial Y dynamics after its emergence is largely governed by chromatin modification, resulting in rapid reversible gene silencing. This study poses a new concept with respect to the initial stage of Y “degeneration”.
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