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Marsupial Genetics and Genomics pp 187–206Cite as

Marsupial Sex Chromosome Behaviour During Male Meiosis

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Abstract

The absence of homology between sex chromosomes in marsupials strongly influences their behaviour during male meiosis. The highly differentiated X and Y chromosomes perform a precise and specific meiotic program that includes pairing and segregation, but lacks the usual mechanisms of synapsis, recombination and chiasma formation that occur in the autosomes and also in the sex chromosomes of eutherian mammals. The most relevant feature of marsupial male meiosis is the development of a synaptonemal complex-derived structure called the dense plate (DP). This structure maintains the association between the asynaptic and achiasmatic sex chromosomes during the first meiotic division, contributing to the proper segregation of sex chromosomes into daughter cells. Comparison of the meiotic mechanism present in marsupials with those present in some eutherian mammals opens new perspectives concerning the origin of sex chromosomes and sex chromosome segregation in the ancestor of marsupials and placental mammals. Similarly, recent characterisation of the mechanisms involved in the inactivation of sex chromosomes during marsupial meiosis has led to the idea that somatic inactivation of sex chromosomes in mammals may have originated from the more ancient and conserved mechanism of meiotic sex chromosome inactivation. This clearly places marsupial meiosis at the heart of the discussion concerning sex chromosome evolution and the origin of gene dosage compensation in mammals.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by FONDECYT grant 1080090 (Chile), grant BFU2009-10987 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and grant A/017762/08 from Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (Spain).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Genética Humana, Facultad de Medicina, Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Raúl Fernández-Donoso & Soledad Berríos

  2. Unidad de Biología Celular, Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Julio S. Rufas

  3. Laboratorio C-001, Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Edificio de Ciencias Biológicas, Cantoblanco, Madrid, 28049, Spain

    Jesús Page

Authors
  1. Raúl Fernández-Donoso
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  2. Soledad Berríos
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  3. Julio S. Rufas
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  4. Jesús Page
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jesús Page .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Ecology, Evolution&Genetics, The Austral, ARC Centre for Excellence for Kangaroo G, Research School of Biology, building 46, Canberra ACT, 0200, Australia

    Janine E. Deakin

  2. , Ecology, Evolution&Genetics, The Austral, ARC Centre for Excellence for Kangaroo G, Research School of Biology, building 46, Canberra ACT, 0200, Australia

    Paul D. Waters

  3. , Ecology, Evolution and Genetics, ARC Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Ge, Buidling 46, Canberra ACT, 0200, Australia

    Jennifer A. Marshall Graves

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© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

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Fernández-Donoso, R., Berríos, S., Rufas, J.S., Page, J. (2010). Marsupial Sex Chromosome Behaviour During Male Meiosis. In: Deakin, J., Waters, P., Marshall Graves, J. (eds) Marsupial Genetics and Genomics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9023-2_10

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