Conservation and de novo acquisition of dosage compensation on newly evolved sex chromosomes in Drosophila.

Artyom A Alekseyenko, Christopher E Ellison, Andrey A Gorchakov, Qi Zhou, Vera B Kaiser, Nick Toda, Zaak Walton, Shouyong Peng, Peter J Park, Doris Bachtrog, Mitzi I Kuroda

Genes & development 2013 Apr 15

filter terms:

Dosage compensation has arisen in response to the evolution of distinct male (XY) and female (XX) karyotypes. In Drosophila melanogaster, the MSL complex increases male X transcription approximately twofold. X-specific targeting is thought to occur through sequence-dependent binding to chromatin entry sites (CESs), followed by spreading in cis to active genes. We tested this model by asking how newly evolving sex chromosome arms in Drosophila miranda acquired dosage compensation. We found evidence for the creation of new CESs, with the analogous sequence and spacing as in D. melanogaster, providing strong support for the spreading model in the establishment of dosage compensation.

Citation

Artyom A Alekseyenko, Christopher E Ellison, Andrey A Gorchakov, Qi Zhou, Vera B Kaiser, Nick Toda, Zaak Walton, Shouyong Peng, Peter J Park, Doris Bachtrog, Mitzi I Kuroda. Conservation and de novo acquisition of dosage compensation on newly evolved sex chromosomes in Drosophila. Genes & development. 2013 Apr 15;27(8):853-8