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Nonrandom Representation of Sex-Biased Genes on Chicken Z Chromosome

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Abstract

Several lines of evidence suggest that the X chromosome of various animal species has an unusual complement of genes with sex-biased or sex-specific expression. However, the study of the X chromosome gene content in different organisms provided conflicting results. The most striking contrast concerns the male-biased genes, which were reported to be almost depleted from the X chromosome in Drosophila but overrepresented on the X chromosome in mammals. To elucidate the reason for these discrepancies, we analysed the gene content of the Z chromosome in chicken. Our analysis of the publicly available expressed sequence tags (EST) data and genome draft sequence revealed a significant underrepresentation of ovary-specific genes on the chicken Z chromosome. For the brain-expressed genes, we found a significant enrichment of male-biased genes but an indication of underrepresentation of female-biased genes on the Z chromosome. This is the first report on the nonrandom gene content in a homogametic sex chromosome of a species with heterogametic female individuals. Further comparison of gene contents of the independently evolved X and Z sex chromosomes may offer new insight into the evolutionary processes leading to the nonrandom genomic distribution of sex-biased and sex-specific genes.

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Acknowledgments

We thank J. Forejt for continuing support and comments on our work; J. Hejnar, D. Storch, and Z. Trachtulec for valuable suggestions; Š. Takáčová for reading the manuscript; and two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic Grant No. 1M6837805002, Center for Applied Genomics, and by the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences Grant No. AVOZ50520514.

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  1. Institute of Molecular Genetics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Center for Applied Genomics, Vídeňská 1083, CZ-142 20, Prague 4, Czech Republic

    R. Storchová & P. Divina

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  1. R. Storchová
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  2. P. Divina
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Correspondence to R. Storchová.

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[Reviewing Editor: Dr. Manyuan Long]

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Storchová, R., Divina, P. Nonrandom Representation of Sex-Biased Genes on Chicken Z Chromosome. J Mol Evol 63, 676–681 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-006-0022-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-006-0022-1

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