Role of Gene Conversion in the Evolution of Sex Chromosomes

Dear Colleagues,

In many dioecious organisms, sex chromosomes are heteromorphic and participate in sex determination. Sex chromosomes evolved independently in many groups belonging to different kingdoms and it has been hypothesized that their evolution is characterized by few preserved evolutionary steps. They originated from a single pair of ancestral recombining autosomes that began to differentiate due to the suppression of meiotic recombination between them. As a consequence, the evolution of the heterogametic sex-specific chromosome has been characterized by its rapid structural decay and the loss of most of its ancestral genes. Thus, it has long been considered a recombinationally inert genomic element. This view has been recently dismissed by the discovery that the sequence landscape of sex chromosomes can be modulated by abundant inter-and intra- chromosomal gene conversion (GC): a type of recombination which, unlike crossing-over, involves the non-reciprocal transfer of genetic information from a “donor” sequence to a highly similar “acceptor” and seems essential to maintain the structural integrity of the genome.

Despite its importance in diseases (e.g. infertility) and evolution, the study of the dynamics of GC in the evolution of sex chromosomes is still in its infancy, mainly because of the complexity of analysis, due to the high sequence similarity of the interacting paralogs.

This special issue will collect reviews and original research articles concerning the role of GC in the evolution of sex chromosomes in all known chromosomal sex-determination systems, focusing on the analysis of genetic diversity, but also on how both intra- and inter-chromosomal gene conversion is an indispensable ubiquitous mechanism for maintaining sex chromosome structures.

Sincerely

Prof. Beniamino Trombetta
Guest Editor

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