Shared forces of sex chromosome evolution in haploid-mating and diploid-mating organisms: Microbotryum violaceum and other model organisms.

ABSTRACT: It is usually posited that the most important factors contributing to sex chromosome evolution in diploids are the suppression of meiotic recombination and the asymmetry that results from one chromosome (the Y) being permanently heterozygous and the other (the X) being homozygous in half of the individuals involved in mating. To distinguish between the roles of these two factors, it would be valuable to compare sex chromosomes in diploid-mating organisms and organisms where mating compatibility is determined in the haploid stage. In this latter group, no such asymmetry occurs because the sex chromosomes are equally heterozygous. Here we show in the fungus Microbotryum violaceum that the chromosomes carrying the mating-type locus, and thus determining haploid-mating compatibility, are rich

SUBMITTER: Hood ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1448122 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature