Sex-Specific Selection Drives the Evolution of Alternative Splicing in Birds.

ABSTRACT: Males and females of the same species share the majority of their genomes, yet they are frequently exposed to conflicting selection pressures. Gene regulation is widely assumed to resolve these conflicting sex-specific selection pressures, and although there has been considerable focus on elucidating the role of gene expression level in sex-specific adaptation, other regulatory mechanisms have been overlooked. Alternative splicing enables different transcripts to be generated from the same gene, meaning that exons which have sex-specific beneficial effects can in theory be retained in the gene product, whereas exons with detrimental effects can be skipped. However, at present, little is known about how sex-specific selection acts on broad patterns of alternative splicing. Here, we investig

SUBMITTER: Rogers TF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7826194 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature