Sex Chromosome Dosage Compensation in Insects
1
School of Agricultural Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China
2
State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Insects 2025, 16(2), 160; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects16020160
Submission received: 22 October 2024
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Revised: 24 January 2025
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Accepted: 26 January 2025
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Published: 4 February 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Insect Molecular Biology)
Simple Summary
The dosage compensation effect is one of the most common mechanisms by which the organisms with sexual dimorphism balance the genes expression. In insects, there mainly exist four types of sex determination, including the male heterogamety XY/X0 and the female heterogamety WZ/Z0. Although there has been a wide variety of studies on the dosage compensation effect, there is still a lack of systematic review. Moreover, some studies are even controversial. Therefore, it is essential to carry out a comprehensive and systematic analysis of previous studies. In this review, we summarized the research progress, analyzed the existing problems, and explored future study prospects. The purpose of this review is to provide references for the future work on sex chromosome dosage compensation in insects.
Abstract
Dosage compensation (DC) is of crucial importance in balancing the sex-linked gene expression between males and females. It serves to guarantee that the proteins or other enzymatic products encoded by the sex chromosome exhibit quantitative parity between the two genders. During the evolutionary process of achieving dose compensation, insects have developed a wide variety of mechanisms. There exist two primary modes of dosage compensation mechanisms, including the up-regulation of heterogametic sex chromosomes in the heterogamety and down-regulation of homogametic sex chromosomes in the homogamety. Although extensive investigations have been conducted on dosage compensation in model insects, many questions still remain unresolved. Meanwhile, research on non-model insects is attracting increasing attention. This paper systematically summarizes the current advances in the field of insect dosage compensation with respect to its types and mechanisms. The principal insects involved in this study include the Drosophila melanogaster, Tribolium castaneum, Bombyx mori, and other lepidopteran insects. This paper analyzes the controversial issues about insect dosage compensation and also provides prospects for future research.
