Insights into sex chromosome evolution and aging from the genome of a short-lived fish.

Authors: Reichwald, Kathrin and Petzold, Andreas and Koch, Philipp and Downie, Bryan R and Hartmann, Nils and Pietsch, Stefan and Baumgart, Mario and Chalopin, Domitille and Felder, Marius and Bens, Martin and Sahm, Arne and Szafranski, Karol and Taudien, Stefan and Groth, Marco and Arisi, Ivan and Weise, Anja and Bhatt, Samarth S and Sharma, Virag and Kraus, Johann M and Schmid, Florian and Priebe, Steffen and Liehr, Thomas and Görlach, Matthias and Than, Manuel E and Hiller, Michael and Kestler, Hans A and Volff, Jean-Nicolas and Schartl, Manfred and Cellerino, Alessandro and Englert, Christoph and Platzer, Matthias

The killifish Nothobranchius furzeri is the shortest-lived vertebrate that can be bred in the laboratory. Its rapid growth, early sexual maturation, fast aging, and arrested embryonic development (diapause) make it an attractive model organism in biomedical research. Here, we report a draft sequence of its genome that allowed us to uncover an intra-species Y chromosome polymorphism representing-in real time-different stages of sex chromosome formation that display features of early mammalian XY evolution "in action." Our data suggest that gdf6Y, encoding a TGF-ß family growth factor, is the master sex-determining gene in N. furzeri. Moreover, we observed genomic clustering of aging-related genes, identified genes under positive selection, and revealed significant similarities of gene expression profiles between diapause and aging, particularly for genes controlling cell cycle and translation. The annotated genome sequence is provided as an online resource (http://www.nothobranchius.info/NFINgb). Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Journal: Cell
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.10.071
Year: 2015

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