A frog with three sex chromosomes that co-mingle together in nature: Xenopus tropicalis has a degenerate W and a Y that evolved from a Z chromosome.

ABSTRACT: In many species, sexual differentiation is a vital prelude to reproduction, and disruption of this process can have severe fitness effects, including sterility. It is thus interesting that genetic systems governing sexual differentiation vary among-and even within-species. To understand these systems more, we investigated a rare example of a frog with three sex chromosomes: the Western clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis. We demonstrate that natural populations from the western and eastern edges of Ghana have a young Y chromosome, and that a male-determining factor on this Y chromosome is in a very similar genomic location as a previously known female-determining factor on the W chromosome. Nucleotide polymorphism of expressed transcripts suggests genetic degeneration on the W chromosome, emer

SUBMITTER: Furman BLS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7652241 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature