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Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae)

The Asian box turtle genus Cuora currently comprises 13 species with a wide distribution in Southeast Asia, including China and the islands of Indonesia and Philippines. The populations of these species are rapidly declining due to human pressure, including pollution, habitat loss, and harvesting fo...

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Autores principales: Clemente, Lorenzo, Mazzoleni, Sofia, Pensabene, Eleonora, Protiva, Tomáš, Wagner, Philipp, Fritz, Uwe, Kratochvíl, Lukáš, Rovatsos, Michail
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7911423/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33503936
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes12020156
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author Clemente, Lorenzo
Mazzoleni, Sofia
Pensabene, Eleonora
Protiva, Tomáš
Wagner, Philipp
Fritz, Uwe
Kratochvíl, Lukáš
Rovatsos, Michail
author_facet Clemente, Lorenzo
Mazzoleni, Sofia
Pensabene, Eleonora
Protiva, Tomáš
Wagner, Philipp
Fritz, Uwe
Kratochvíl, Lukáš
Rovatsos, Michail
author_sort Clemente, Lorenzo
collection PubMed
description The Asian box turtle genus Cuora currently comprises 13 species with a wide distribution in Southeast Asia, including China and the islands of Indonesia and Philippines. The populations of these species are rapidly declining due to human pressure, including pollution, habitat loss, and harvesting for food consumption. Notably, the IUCN Red List identifies almost all species of the genus Cuora as Endangered (EN) or Critically Endangered (CR). In this study, we explore the karyotypes of 10 Cuora species with conventional (Giemsa staining, C-banding, karyogram reconstruction) and molecular cytogenetic methods (in situ hybridization with probes for rDNA loci and telomeric repeats). Our study reveals a diploid chromosome number of 2n = 52 chromosomes in all studied species, with karyotypes of similar chromosomal morphology. In all examined species, rDNA loci are detected at a single medium-sized chromosome pair and the telomeric repeats are restricted to the expected terminal position across all chromosomes. In contrast to a previous report, sex chromosomes are neither detected in Cuora galbinifrons nor in any other species. Therefore, we assume that these turtles have either environmental sex determination or genotypic sex determination with poorly differentiated sex chromosomes. The conservation of genome organization could explain the numerous observed cases of interspecific hybridization both within the genus Cuora and across geoemydid turtles.
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spelling pubmed-79114232021-02-28 Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae) Clemente, Lorenzo Mazzoleni, Sofia Pensabene, Eleonora Protiva, Tomáš Wagner, Philipp Fritz, Uwe Kratochvíl, Lukáš Rovatsos, Michail Genes (Basel) Article The Asian box turtle genus Cuora currently comprises 13 species with a wide distribution in Southeast Asia, including China and the islands of Indonesia and Philippines. The populations of these species are rapidly declining due to human pressure, including pollution, habitat loss, and harvesting for food consumption. Notably, the IUCN Red List identifies almost all species of the genus Cuora as Endangered (EN) or Critically Endangered (CR). In this study, we explore the karyotypes of 10 Cuora species with conventional (Giemsa staining, C-banding, karyogram reconstruction) and molecular cytogenetic methods (in situ hybridization with probes for rDNA loci and telomeric repeats). Our study reveals a diploid chromosome number of 2n = 52 chromosomes in all studied species, with karyotypes of similar chromosomal morphology. In all examined species, rDNA loci are detected at a single medium-sized chromosome pair and the telomeric repeats are restricted to the expected terminal position across all chromosomes. In contrast to a previous report, sex chromosomes are neither detected in Cuora galbinifrons nor in any other species. Therefore, we assume that these turtles have either environmental sex determination or genotypic sex determination with poorly differentiated sex chromosomes. The conservation of genome organization could explain the numerous observed cases of interspecific hybridization both within the genus Cuora and across geoemydid turtles. MDPI 2021-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7911423/ /pubmed/33503936 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes12020156 Text en © 2021 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
Clemente, Lorenzo
Mazzoleni, Sofia
Pensabene, Eleonora
Protiva, Tomáš
Wagner, Philipp
Fritz, Uwe
Kratochvíl, Lukáš
Rovatsos, Michail
Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae)
title Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae)
title_full Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae)
title_fullStr Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae)
title_full_unstemmed Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae)
title_short Cytogenetic Analysis of the Asian Box Turtles of the Genus Cuora (Testudines, Geoemydidae)
title_sort cytogenetic analysis of the asian box turtles of the genus cuora (testudines, geoemydidae)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7911423/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33503936
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes12020156
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