Collaborative Research: Comparative Investigation of Incipient Sex Chromosome Evolution in the genus Asparagus

虽然不同的性染色体是不同生物体细胞核的显著特征，但动物、植物和真菌中不同性别和性染色体起源的进化过程在很大程度上仍然未知。在许多开花植物谱系中，不同性别（即雄性个体和雌性个体）的独立起源为生物学家提供了研究性别决定和性染色体进化的各个阶段的机会。 例如，在过去的200万年里，芦笋属已经进化出了不同的性别，负责性别决定的基因已经被定位在重组染色体上相对较小的区域。 PI、Leebens-Mack和Pires将对花园芦笋中这一区域新进化的雌性（原X）和雄性（原Y）形式进行测序，以检验有关早期性染色体早期进化的假设，并鉴定可能负责性别决定的候选基因。通过研究促进开花植物中影响雄性和雌性功能的基因之间重组抑制的机制，该项目的结果将对作物改良和形成基因组结构的基本过程产生影响。 本科生还将接受基因组注释和比较基因组学的培训。

While distinctive sex chromosomes are a conspicuous feature of the nuclei of diverse organisms, the evolutionary processes responsible for the origins of separate genders and sex chromosomes in animals, plants and fungi remain largely unknown. The independent origin of separate sexes (that is, male individuals and female individuals) in many flowering plant lineages provides biologists with an opportunity to investigate various stages in the evolution of gender determination and sex chromosomes. For example, separate sexes have evolved within the last two million years in the genus Asparagus and the genes responsible for gender determination have been mapped to a relatively small region on otherwise recombining chromosomes. PIs, Leebens-Mack and Pires will sequence across the newly evolving female (proto-X) and male (proto-Y) forms of this region in garden asparagus in order to test hypotheses concerning the early evolution of incipient sex chromosomes and to identify candidate genes that may be responsible for gender determination.By investigating the mechanisms that promote repression of recombination between genes influencing male and female function in flowering plants, the results from this project will have implications for crop improvement and the fundamental processes that shape genome structure. Undergraduate students will also be trained in genome annotation and comparative genomics.