eLife (Jan 2021)

The rise and fall of the ancient northern pike master sex-determining gene

  • Qiaowei Pan,
  • Romain Feron,
  • Elodie Jouanno,
  • Hugo Darras,
  • Amaury Herpin,
  • Ben Koop,
  • Eric Rondeau,
  • Frederick W Goetz,
  • Wesley A Larson,
  • Louis Bernatchez,
  • Mike Tringali,
  • Stephen S Curran,
  • Eric Saillant,
  • Gael PJ Denys,
  • Frank A von Hippel,
  • Songlin Chen,
  • J Andrés López,
  • Hugo Verreycken,
  • Konrad Ocalewicz,
  • Rene Guyomard,
  • Camille Eche,
  • Jerome Lluch,
  • Celine Roques,
  • Hongxia Hu,
  • Roger Tabor,
  • Patrick DeHaan,
  • Krista M Nichols,
  • Laurent Journot,
  • Hugues Parrinello,
  • Christophe Klopp,
  • Elena A Interesova,
  • Vladimir Trifonov,
  • Manfred Schartl,
  • John Postlethwait,
  • Yann Guiguen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62858
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10

Abstract

Read online

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.

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