TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidences for a role of two Y-specific genes in sex determination in Populus deltoides
AU - Xue, Liangjiao
AU - Wu, Huaitong
AU - Chen, Yingnan
AU - Li, Xiaoping
AU - Hou, Jing
AU - Lu, Jing
AU - Wei, Suyun
AU - Dai, Xiaogang
AU - Olson, Matthew S.
AU - Liu, Jianquan
AU - Wang, Mingxiu
AU - Charlesworth, Deborah
AU - Yin, Tongming
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (2016YFD0600101), and grants from Natural Science Foundation of China (31561123001 and NSF1542599).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Almost all plants in the genus Populus are dioecious (i.e. trees are either male or female), but it is unknown whether dioecy evolved in a common ancestor or independently in different subgenera. Here, we sequence the small peritelomeric X- and Y-linked regions of P. deltoides chromosome XIX. Two genes are present only in the Y-linked region. One is a duplication of a non-Y-linked, female-specifically expressed response regulator, which produces siRNAs that block this gene’s expression, repressing femaleness. The other is an LTR/Gypsy transposable element family member, which generates long non-coding RNAs. Overexpression of this gene in A. thaliana promotes androecium development. We also find both genes in the sex-determining region of P. simonii, a different poplar subgenus, which suggests that they are both stable components of poplar sex-determining systems. By contrast, only the duplicated response regulator gene is present in the sex-linked regions of P. davidiana and P. tremula. Therefore, findings in our study suggest dioecy may have evolved independently in different poplar subgenera.
AB - Almost all plants in the genus Populus are dioecious (i.e. trees are either male or female), but it is unknown whether dioecy evolved in a common ancestor or independently in different subgenera. Here, we sequence the small peritelomeric X- and Y-linked regions of P. deltoides chromosome XIX. Two genes are present only in the Y-linked region. One is a duplication of a non-Y-linked, female-specifically expressed response regulator, which produces siRNAs that block this gene’s expression, repressing femaleness. The other is an LTR/Gypsy transposable element family member, which generates long non-coding RNAs. Overexpression of this gene in A. thaliana promotes androecium development. We also find both genes in the sex-determining region of P. simonii, a different poplar subgenus, which suggests that they are both stable components of poplar sex-determining systems. By contrast, only the duplicated response regulator gene is present in the sex-linked regions of P. davidiana and P. tremula. Therefore, findings in our study suggest dioecy may have evolved independently in different poplar subgenera.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096225736&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-19559-2
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-19559-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 33208755
AN - SCOPUS:85096225736
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 11
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 5893
ER -