Out with the old, in with the new: Meiotic driving of sex chromosome evolution

Callie M Swanepoel; Jacob L Mueller

doi:10.1016/j.semcdb.2024.04.004

Out with the old, in with the new: Meiotic driving of sex chromosome evolution

Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2024 Apr 24:S1084-9521(24)00041-7. doi: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2024.04.004. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Callie M Swanepoel¹, Jacob L Mueller²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan Medical School, 1241 E. Catherine St, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
² Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan Medical School, 1241 E. Catherine St, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. Electronic address: jacobmu@umich.edu.

PMID: 38664120
DOI: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2024.04.004

Abstract

Chromosomal regions with meiotic drivers exhibit biased transmission (> 50 %) over their competing homologous chromosomal region. These regions often have two prominent genetic features: suppressed meiotic crossing over and rapidly evolving multicopy gene families. Heteromorphic sex chromosomes (e.g., XY) often share these two genetic features with chromosomal regions exhibiting meiotic drive. Here, we discuss parallels between meiotic drive and sex chromosome evolution, how the divergence of heteromorphic sex chromosomes can be influenced by meiotic drive, experimental approaches to study meiotic drive on sex chromosomes, and meiotic drive in traditional and non-traditional model organisms with high-quality genome assemblies. The newly available diversity of high-quality sex chromosome sequences allows us to revisit conventional models of sex chromosome evolution through the lens of meiotic drive.

Keywords: Evolution; Meiotic drive; Multicopy genes; Sex chromosomes; Suppressed recombination.

Publication types

Review