TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lamatsch, Dunja K.
A1  - Adolfsson, Sofia
A1  - Senior, Alistair M.
A1  - Christiansen, Guntram
A1  - Pichler, Maria
A1  - Ozaki, Yuichi
A1  - Smeds, Linnea
A1  - Schartl, Manfred
A1  - Nakagawa, Shinichi
T1  - A transcriptome derived female-specific marker from the invasive Western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis)
JF  - PLoS ONE
N2  - Sex-specific markers are a prerequisite for understanding reproductive biology, genetic factors involved in sex differences, mechanisms of sex determination, and ultimately the evolution of sex chromosomes. The Western mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis, may be considered a model species for sex-chromosome evolution, as it displays female heterogamety (ZW/ZZ), and is also ecologically interesting as a worldwide invasive species. Here, de novo RNA-sequencing on the gonads of sexually mature G. affinis was used to identify contigs that were highly transcribed in females but not in males (i.e., transcripts with ovary-specific expression). Subsequently, 129 primer pairs spanning 79 contigs were tested by PCR to identify sex-specific transcripts. Of those primer pairs, one female-specific DNA marker was identified, Sanger sequenced and subsequently validated in 115 fish. Sequence analyses revealed a high similarity between the identified sex-specific marker and the 3' UTR of the aminomethyl transferase (amt) gene of the closely related platyfish (Xiphophorus maculatus). This is the first time that RNA-seq has been used to successfully characterize a sex-specific marker in a fish species in the absence of a genome map. Additionally, the identified sex-specific marker represents one of only a handful of such markers in fishes.
KW  - sex chromosome evolution
KW  - linkage map
KW  - determination locus
KW  - poeciliid fishes
KW  - heterogamety
KW  - Cynoglossus semilaevis
KW  - determining genes
KW  - Y chromosome
KW  - sequence alignment
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-144004
VL  - 10
IS  - 2
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sendell-Price, Ashley T.
A1  - Tulenko, Frank J.
A1  - Pettersson, Mats
A1  - Kang, Du
A1  - Montandon, Margo
A1  - Winkler, Sylke
A1  - Kulb, Kathleen
A1  - Naylor, Gavin P.
A1  - Phillippy, Adam
A1  - Fedrigo, Olivier
A1  - Mountcastle, Jacquelyn
A1  - Balacco, Jennifer R.
A1  - Dutra, Amalia
A1  - Dale, Rebecca E.
A1  - Haase, Bettina
A1  - Jarvis, Erich D.
A1  - Myers, Gene
A1  - Burgess, Shawn M.
A1  - Currie, Peter D.
A1  - Andersson, Leif
A1  - Schartl, Manfred
T1  - Low mutation rate in epaulette sharks is consistent with a slow rate of evolution in sharks
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Sharks occupy diverse ecological niches and play critical roles in marine ecosystems, often acting as apex predators. They are considered a slow-evolving lineage and have been suggested to exhibit exceptionally low cancer rates. These two features could be explained by a low nuclear mutation rate. Here, we provide a direct estimate of the nuclear mutation rate in the epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum). We generate a high-quality reference genome, and resequence the whole genomes of parents and nine offspring to detect de novo mutations. Using stringent criteria, we estimate a mutation rate of 7×10\(^{−10}\) per base pair, per generation. This represents one of the lowest directly estimated mutation rates for any vertebrate clade, indicating that this basal vertebrate group is indeed a slowly evolving lineage whose ability to restore genetic diversity following a sustained population bottleneck may be hampered by a low mutation rate.
KW  - evolutionary genetics
KW  - genomics
KW  - molecular evolution
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-357827
VL  - 14
ER  -