Collaborative Research: Initiation of a sex-determining chromosome: insights from sexually dimorphic strawberries

从常染色体进化出决定性别的染色体是雌雄异株生物的普遍特征，值得注意的是，同样的进化步骤似乎也发生在动物、真菌和植物中。尽管在广泛的生物体中进行了研究，但这种染色体转变的最早阶段仍然几乎未被探索。通过使用两个密切相关的野生草莓物种，并结合包括遗传学，基因组学，生物信息学，生态学和系统学在内的方法，这项研究将为这种转变的基本步骤提供变革性的见解。特别是，基因组指纹和选择性力负责重组抑制将被详细检查。这项工作还将为开花植物性别决定基因组区域的比较基因组研究提供分类多样性和急需的数据。这项工作将有助于促进基因组学、生物信息学、遗传和生态实验设计方面的本科生、研究生和博士后培训，以及发展以草莓遗传学为重点的中学课程。它将通过扩展我们对性别决定基因的特定知识，以及对栽培草莓重要野生近缘种的遗传和基因组多样性的一般知识，为社会做出贡献，并通过国家数据库和种质资源库为更广泛的科学界提供植物和基因组资源。这项工作还将首次揭示伴随基因组合并和性别分离共存的基因组变化，这是许多植物谱系的一个特征。

The evolution of sex-determining chromosomes from autosomes is a universal feature of dioecious organisms, and remarkably, the same evolutionary steps seem to occur in animals, fungi and plants. Despite studies in a wide range of organisms, the very earliest stages in this chromosomal transition remain nearly unexplored. Through the use of two closely related species of wild strawberry, and a merger of approaches including genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, ecology and systematics, this research will offer transformative insight into the steps fundamental to this transition. In particular, the genomic fingerprint and selective forces responsible for recombination suppression will be examined in detail. This work will also provide taxonomic diversity and much needed data for comparative genomic studies of sex-determining genomic regions across the flowering plants.This work will contribute to the promotion of undergraduate, graduate student and postdoc training in genomics, bioinformatics, genetic and ecological experimental design, as well as the development of a middle school curriculum that will focus on genetics in strawberry. It will contribute to society by expanding our specific knowledge of genes for sex-determination, and general knowledge of genetic and genomic diversity in important wild relatives of the cultivated strawberry, as well as provide plant and genomic resources to the wider scientific community via national databases and germplasm repositories. This work will also shed first light on the genomic changes that accompany the co-occurrence of genome merger and separate sexes that is a feature of many plant lineages.