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Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes
The caenophidian (assigned also as “advanced”) snakes are traditionally viewed as a group of reptiles with a limited karyotypic variation and stable ZZ/ZW sex chromosomes. The W chromosomes of the caenophidian snakes are heterochromatic, and pioneering studies demonstrated that they are rich in repe...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793158/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29283388 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes9010005 |
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author | Augstenová, Barbora Mazzoleni, Sofia Kratochvíl, Lukáš Rovatsos, Michail |
author_facet | Augstenová, Barbora Mazzoleni, Sofia Kratochvíl, Lukáš Rovatsos, Michail |
author_sort | Augstenová, Barbora |
collection | PubMed |
description | The caenophidian (assigned also as “advanced”) snakes are traditionally viewed as a group of reptiles with a limited karyotypic variation and stable ZZ/ZW sex chromosomes. The W chromosomes of the caenophidian snakes are heterochromatic, and pioneering studies demonstrated that they are rich in repetitive elements. However, a comparative study of the evolutionary dynamics of the repetitive content of the W chromosome across the whole lineage is missing. Using molecular-cytogenetic techniques, we explored the distribution of four repetitive motifs (microsatellites GATA, GACA, AG and telomeric-like sequences), which are frequently accumulated in differentiated sex chromosomes in vertebrates, in the genomes of 13 species of the caenophidian snakes covering a wide phylogenetic spectrum of the lineage. The results demonstrate a striking variability in the morphology and the repetitive content of the W chromosomes even between closely-related species, which is in contrast to the homology and long-term stability of the gene content of the caenophidian Z chromosome. We uncovered that the tested microsatellite motifs are accumulated on the degenerated, heterochromatic W chromosomes in all tested species of the caenophidian snakes with the exception of the Javan file snake representing a basal clade. On the other hand, the presence of the accumulation of the telomeric-like sequences on the caenophidian W chromosome is evolutionary much less stable. Moreover, we demonstrated that large accumulations of telomeric-like motifs on the W chromosome contribute to sexual differences in the number of copies of the telomeric and telomeric-like repeats estimated by quantitative PCR, which might be confusing and incorrectly interpreted as sexual differences in telomere length. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5793158 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57931582018-02-07 Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes Augstenová, Barbora Mazzoleni, Sofia Kratochvíl, Lukáš Rovatsos, Michail Genes (Basel) Article The caenophidian (assigned also as “advanced”) snakes are traditionally viewed as a group of reptiles with a limited karyotypic variation and stable ZZ/ZW sex chromosomes. The W chromosomes of the caenophidian snakes are heterochromatic, and pioneering studies demonstrated that they are rich in repetitive elements. However, a comparative study of the evolutionary dynamics of the repetitive content of the W chromosome across the whole lineage is missing. Using molecular-cytogenetic techniques, we explored the distribution of four repetitive motifs (microsatellites GATA, GACA, AG and telomeric-like sequences), which are frequently accumulated in differentiated sex chromosomes in vertebrates, in the genomes of 13 species of the caenophidian snakes covering a wide phylogenetic spectrum of the lineage. The results demonstrate a striking variability in the morphology and the repetitive content of the W chromosomes even between closely-related species, which is in contrast to the homology and long-term stability of the gene content of the caenophidian Z chromosome. We uncovered that the tested microsatellite motifs are accumulated on the degenerated, heterochromatic W chromosomes in all tested species of the caenophidian snakes with the exception of the Javan file snake representing a basal clade. On the other hand, the presence of the accumulation of the telomeric-like sequences on the caenophidian W chromosome is evolutionary much less stable. Moreover, we demonstrated that large accumulations of telomeric-like motifs on the W chromosome contribute to sexual differences in the number of copies of the telomeric and telomeric-like repeats estimated by quantitative PCR, which might be confusing and incorrectly interpreted as sexual differences in telomere length. MDPI 2017-12-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5793158/ /pubmed/29283388 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes9010005 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Augstenová, Barbora Mazzoleni, Sofia Kratochvíl, Lukáš Rovatsos, Michail Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes |
title | Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes |
title_full | Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes |
title_fullStr | Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes |
title_full_unstemmed | Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes |
title_short | Evolutionary Dynamics of the W Chromosome in Caenophidian Snakes |
title_sort | evolutionary dynamics of the w chromosome in caenophidian snakes |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793158/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29283388 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes9010005 |
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