Gene discovery and comparative analysis of X-degenerate genes from the domestic cat Y chromosome. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Mammalian sex chromosomes are the remnants of an ancient autosomal pair present in the ancestral mammalian karyotype. As a consequence of random decay and chromosome rearrangements over evolutionary time, Y chromosome gene repertoires differ between eutherian lineages. To investigate the gene repertoire and transcriptional analysis of the domestic cat Y chromosome, and their potential roles in spermatogenesis, we obtained full-length cDNA sequences for all known Y genes and their X chromosome gametologues and used those sequences to create a BAC-based physical map of the X-degenerate region. Our results indicate the domestic cat Y chromosome has retained most X-degenerate genes that were present on the ancestral eutherian Y chromosome. Transcriptional analysis revealed that most feline X-degenerate genes have retained housekeeping functions shared by their X chromosome partners and have not been specialized for testis-specific functions. Physical mapping data indicate that the cat SRY gene is present as multiple functional copies and that very little of the felid Y chromosome may be single copy. X-Y gene divergence time estimates obtained using Bayesian methods confirm an early origin of Stratum 1 genes prior to the origin of therian mammals. We observed no statistical difference in the ages of Stratum 2 and Stratum 3 gene pairs, suggesting that eutherian and marsupial Stratum 2 genes may have been independently retained in each lineage.

published proceedings

  • Genomics

author list (cited authors)

  • Pearks Wilkerson, A. J., Raudsepp, T., Graves, T., Albracht, D., Warren, W., Chowdhary, B. P., Skow, L. C., & Murphy, W. J.

citation count

  • 44

complete list of authors

  • Pearks Wilkerson, Alison J||Raudsepp, Terje||Graves, Tina||Albracht, Derek||Warren, Wesley||Chowdhary, Bhanu P||Skow, Loren C||Murphy, William J

publication date

  • January 2008