Study of sex determination mechanisms in Wasmannia auropunctata
Project/Area Number |
24770034
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Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
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Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
Research Field |
Ecology/Environment
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Research Institution | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University |
Principal Investigator |
MIKHEYEV Alexander 沖縄科学技術大学院大学, その他の研究科, 准教授 (90601162)
|
Project Period (FY) |
2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
|
Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2014)
|
Budget Amount *help |
¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000)
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Keywords | genomics / sex determination / reproduction / social insects / ants / RAD-tag |
Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Recent, though controversial, comparative genomic studies proposed that a core pathway underlies complementary sex determination (CSD) in many, if not all, hymenopteran insects. First characterized in honey bees, it involves the joint action of tandemly arranged homologs of the fruit fly transformer gene. We used an experimental cross to test whether the sex determination mechanism is conserved in the ant Vollenhovia emeryi. Two QTLs on separate linkage groups (CsdQTL1 and CsdQTL2) jointly explained 98.0% of the phenotypic variance. CsdQTL1 included two tandem transformer homologs, with one under diversifying selection, as in the honey bee, suggesting a mechanism shared for over 100 million years. CsdQTL2 had no homology to CsdQTL1 and included a region more than 250kb. As multi-locus CSD can collapse to a single gene, alternate loci such as CsdQTL2, can provide intermediates to other sex determination pathways. Multi-locus CSD may explain the diversity of sex determination pathways.
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Report
(4 results)
Research Products
(2 results)