The wtf meiotic driver gene family has unexpectedly persisted for over 100 million years.

ABSTRACT: Meiotic drivers are selfish elements that bias their own transmission into more than half of the viable progeny produced by a driver+/driver- heterozygote. Meiotic drivers are thought to exist for relatively short evolutionary timespans because a driver gene or gene family is often found in a single species or in a group of very closely related species. Additionally, drivers are generally considered doomed to extinction when they spread to fixation or when suppressors arise. In this study, we examine the evolutionary history of the wtf meiotic drivers first discovered in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We identify homologous genes in three other fission yeast species, S. octosporus, S. osmophilus, and S. cryophilus, which are estimated to hav

SUBMITTER: De Carvalho M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9562144 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature