Abstract
Polyploids in vertebrates are generally associated with unisexual reproduction, but the direct consequences of polyploidy on sex determination system and reproduction mode remain unknown. Here, we synthesized a group of artificial octoploids between unisexual gynogenetic hexaploid Carassius gibelio and sexual tetraploid Carassius auratus. The synthetic octoploids were revealed to have more than 200 chromosomes, in which 50 chromosomes including the X/Y sex determination system were identified to transfer from sexual tetraploid C. auratus into the unisexual gynogenetic hexaploid C. gibelio. Significantly, a few synthetic octoploid males were found to be fertile, and one octoploid male was confirmed to regain sexual reproduction ability, which exhibits characteristics that are the same to sexual reproduction tetraploid males, such as 1:1 sex ratio occurrence, meiosis completion and euploid sperm formation in spermatogenesis, as well as normal embryo development and gene expression pattern during embryogenesis. Therefore, the current finding provides a unique case to explore the effect of sex determination system incorporation on reproduction mode transition from unisexual gynogenesis to sexual reproduction along with genome synthesis of recurrent polyploidy in vertebrates.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31930111 and 31873036), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA24030104), the National Key Research and Development Project (2018YFD0900204), the Key Program of Frontier Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (QYZDY-SSW-SMC025), the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-45-07), the Autonomous Project of the State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology (2019FBZ04), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS. The authors thank Yan Wang (the Center for Instrumental Analysis and Metrology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for technical assistance in flow cytometry.
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Lu, M., Li, XY., Li, Z. et al. Regain of sex determination system and sexual reproduction ability in a synthetic octoploid male fish. Sci. China Life Sci. 64, 77–87 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-020-1694-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-020-1694-7