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Recurrent breakdown and rebalance of segregation distortion in the genomes: battle for the transmission advantage

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Abstract

Mendel’s laws state that each of the two alleles would segregate during gamete formation and show the same transmission ratio in the next generation. However, an unexpected biased allele transmission was first detected in Drosophila a century ago, and was subsequently observed in other animals, plants, and microorganisms. Such segregation distortion (SD) shows substantial effects in population structure and fitness of the progenies, which would ultimately lead to reproductive isolation and speciation. Here, we trace the early investigations on the violation of Mendelian genetic principle, which appears as a wide-existence phenomenon rather than a case of exception. The occurence of SD in the whole genome was observed in a number of plant species at the single- and multi-locus level. Biased transmission ratio might occur at meiosis stage due to asymmetric movement of the chromosome; transmission ratio advantage is also caused by interaction and battle between the alleles from respective genomes at the genetic and molecular level. The origin of a SD system is likely to be determined by coevolution of the killer and protector via recurrent breakdown or rebalance loop. These updated understandings also promote genetic improvement of hybrid crops.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31991223), the Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (2019CFA061), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2662020SKPY005), and the National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals.

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  1. National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement and National Centre of Plant Gene Research (Wuhan), Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Fan Xia & Yidan Ouyang

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Xia, F., Ouyang, Y. Recurrent breakdown and rebalance of segregation distortion in the genomes: battle for the transmission advantage. aBIOTECH 1, 246–254 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42994-020-00023-0

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