The rise and fall of the ancient northern pike master sex determining gene
- INRAE, France
- French National Institute for Agricultural Research, France
- University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- University of Victoria, Canada
- NOAA, United States
- 6.Fisheries Aquatic Science and Technology Laboratory at Alaska Pacific University, United States
- University Laval, Canada
- Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, United States
- Auburn University, United States
- The University of Southern Mississippi, United States
- Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, France
- Northern Arizona University, United States
- Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, China
- College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences Fisheries, United States
- Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Belgium
- University of Gdansk, Poland
- Beijing Fisheries Research Institute, China
- U S Fish and Wildlife Service, United States
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States
- CNRS, INSERM, France
- Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle, France
- Tomsk State University, Russian Federation
- Novosibirsk State University, Russian Federation
- University of Würzburg, Germany
- University of Oregon, United States
Abstract
The understanding of the evolution of variable sex determination mechanisms across taxa requires comparative studies among closely related species. Following the fate of a known master sex-determining gene, we traced the evolution of sex determination in an entire teleost order (Esociformes). We discovered that the northern pike (Esox lucius) master sex-determining gene originated from a 65 to 90 million-year-old gene duplication event and that it remained sex-linked on undifferentiated sex chromosomes for at least 56 million years in multiple species. We identified several independent species- or population-specific sex determination transitions, including a recent loss of a Y-chromosome. These findings highlight the diversity of evolutionary fates of master sex-determining genes and the importance of population demographic history in sex determination studies. We hypothesize that occasional sex reversals and genetic bottlenecks provide a non-adaptive explanation for sex determination transitions.
Data availability
All gene sequences, genomic, Pool-seq and RAD-Seq reads were deposited under the common project number PRJNA634624.
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Sex determination in the EsociformesGenBank, PRJNA634624.
Article and author information
Author details
Frank A von Hippel
Elena A Interesova
Funding
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-13-ISV7-0005)
- Yann Guiguen
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Manfred Schartl
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-INBS-09)
- Laurent Journot
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-INBS-09)
- Celine Roques
National Institute of Health (R01GM085318)
- John H Postlethwait
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Molly Przeworski, Columbia University, United States
Version history
- Received: September 6, 2020
- Accepted: January 27, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: January 28, 2021 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: February 8, 2021 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2021, Pan et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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The rise and fall of the ancient northern pike master sex determining gene
eLife 10:e62858.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62858
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