Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2020 Oct 28;287(1937):20200469. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.0469. Epub 2020 Oct 21.
The coordination between mitochondrial and nuclear genes is crucial to eukaryotic organisms. Predicting the nature of these epistatic interactions can be difficult because of the transmission asymmetry of the genes involved. While autosomes and X-linked genes are transmitted through both sexes, genes on the Y chromosome and in the mitochondrial genome are uniparentally transmitted through males and females, respectively. Here, we generate 36 otherwise isogenic strains differing only in the geographical origin of their mitochondrial genome and Y chromosome, to experimentally examine the effects of the uniparentally inherited parts of the genome, as well as their interaction, in males. We assay longevity and gene expression through RNA-sequencing. We detect an important role for both mitochondrial and Y-linked genes, as well as extensive mitochondrial-Y chromosome epistasis. In particular, genes involved in male reproduction appear to be especially sensitive to such interactions, and variation on the Y chromosome is associated with differences in longevity. Despite these interactions, we find no evidence that the mitochondrial genome and Y chromosome are co-adapted within a geographical region. Overall, our study demonstrates a key role for the uniparentally inherited parts of the genome for male biology, but also that mito-nuclear interactions are complex and not easily predicted from simple transmission asymmetries.
线粒体和核基因之间的协调对于真核生物至关重要。由于涉及的基因的传递不对称性，预测这些上位相互作用的性质可能很困难。虽然常染色体和 X 连锁基因通过两性传递，但 Y 染色体和线粒体基因组中的基因分别通过男性和女性单向传递。在这里，我们生成了 36 个其他方面是同基因的菌株，它们仅在其线粒体基因组和 Y 染色体的地理起源上有所不同，以实验检验基因组的单向遗传部分及其相互作用在雄性中的影响。我们通过 RNA-seq 检测寿命和基因表达。我们检测到线粒体和 Y 连锁基因以及广泛的线粒体-Y 染色体上位性都有重要作用。特别是，涉及雄性生殖的基因似乎对这种相互作用特别敏感，而 Y 染色体上的变异与寿命的差异有关。尽管存在这些相互作用，但我们没有发现线粒体基因组和 Y 染色体在地理区域内协同适应的证据。总的来说，我们的研究表明，基因组的单向遗传部分对雄性生物学起着关键作用，但线粒体-核相互作用很复杂，不能简单地从传递不对称性来预测。
