Genomic basis of honest sexual signalling

诚实性信号的基因组基础

• 批准号: NE/X009734/1
• 负责人: Alison Wright
• 金额: $ 10.27万
• 依托单位: University of Sheffield
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FX009734%2F1
• 关键词: Genomic; basis; honest; sexual; signalling

Females often show strong sexual preferences to mate with males that exhibit elaborate and exaggerated sexual ornaments. These traits are thought to act as honest signals of male genetic quality, where only high condition males with 'good genes' can afford to invest in elaborate ornaments. However, the genes that give rise to honest sexual signals and enable their evolution are largely unknown. As such, contentious questions central to sexual selection and evolution remain unanswered, such as the role of sexual selection in phenotypic elaboration, molecular evolution and adaptation. Answering these questions is challenging as we require a precise understanding of the genes responsible for honest signals across a range of organisms. However, new technology that deconstructs complex phenotypes to provide single-cell expression data now offers unprecedented potential to probe the genomic basis and evolution of sexual traits, heralding a new era of sexual selection research. The stalk-eyed fly, key to early insights about sexual selection, has several vital characteristics that give the clade exceptional potential to probe the genomics and evolution of honest signalling. Males have highly-exaggerated eye-stalks compared to females. Eye span is an honest indicator of male condition and females prefer to mate with males with longer eye spans. In particular, some stalk-eyed flies harbour a selfish genetic element on the X chromosome that kills Y-bearing sperm. Males from the driver population have lower genetic quality relative to the standard population as half of their sperm are destroyed. Consistent with sexual selection theory, these males exhibit a smaller eye span and are less attractive to females. We will apply state-of-the-art sequencing approaches (scRNA-seq) to this classic model of sexual selection to probe the genomic basis of male genetic quality and honest sexual signalling. Specifically, we will establish how and when spermatogenesis is disrupted in response to the meiotic driver, identify the genes associated with reduced fertility, and test whether these genes are disproportionally located on the sex chromosomes. Our overarching goal is to identify the genomic targets of sexual selection and elucidate the very nature of 'good genes'.

雌性往往表现出强烈的性偏好，与表现出精致和夸张的性装饰的雄性交配。这些特征被认为是男性基因质量的真实信号，只有拥有“好基因”的高条件男性才能买得起精致的装饰品。然而，产生诚实的性信号并使其进化的基因在很大程度上是未知的。因此，性选择和进化的核心争议问题仍未得到解答，例如性选择在表型细化、分子进化和适应中的作用。回答这些问题是具有挑战性的，因为我们需要对一系列生物体中负责诚实信号的基因有一个精确的理解。然而，解构复杂表型以提供单细胞表达数据的新技术现在为探索性特征的基因组基础和进化提供了前所未有的潜力，预示着性选择研究的新时代。柄眼蝇是早期了解性选择的关键，它有几个重要的特征，这些特征赋予了进化支系探索诚实信号的基因组学和进化的非凡潜力。与女性相比，男性的眼柄非常夸张。眼距是雄性状况的可靠指标，雌性更喜欢与眼距较长的雄性交配。特别是，一些柄眼蝇在X染色体上含有自私的基因元素，可以杀死携带y染色体的精子。与标准种群相比，司机种群的男性遗传质量较低，因为他们一半的精子被破坏了。与性选择理论一致，这些雄性的眼距较小，对雌性的吸引力较小。我们将应用最先进的测序方法（scRNA-seq）来研究这一经典的性选择模型，以探索男性遗传质量和诚实性信号的基因组基础。具体来说，我们将确定精子发生是如何以及何时因减数分裂驱动因素而中断的，确定与生育能力降低相关的基因，并测试这些基因是否不成比例地位于性染色体上。我们的首要目标是确定性选择的基因组目标，并阐明“好基因”的本质。