Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3JT, U.K.
School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NJ, U.K.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2021 Jun;96(3):822-841. doi: 10.1111/brv.12680. Epub 2021 Jan 1.
The separation of germ cell populations from the soma is part of the evolutionary transition to multicellularity. Only genetic information present in the germ cells will be inherited by future generations, and any molecular processes affecting the germline genome are therefore likely to be passed on. Despite its prevalence across taxonomic kingdoms, we are only starting to understand details of the underlying micro-evolutionary processes occurring at the germline genome level. These include segregation, recombination, mutation and selection and can occur at any stage during germline differentiation and mitotic germline proliferation to meiosis and post-meiotic gamete maturation. Selection acting on germ cells at any stage from the diploid germ cell to the haploid gametes may cause significant deviations from Mendelian inheritance and may be more widespread than previously assumed. The mechanisms that affect and potentially alter the genomic sequence and allele frequencies in the germline are pivotal to our understanding of heritability. With the rise of new sequencing technologies, we are now able to address some of these unanswered questions. In this review, we comment on the most recent developments in this field and identify current gaps in our knowledge.
生殖细胞与体细胞的分离是向多细胞生物进化的一部分。只有存在于生殖细胞中的遗传信息才会被后代继承，因此任何影响生殖系基因组的分子过程都很可能被传递下去。尽管这种现象在分类学的各个王国中都很普遍，但我们才刚刚开始了解生殖系基因组水平上发生的潜在微观进化过程的细节。这些过程包括分离、重组、突变和选择，并且可以在生殖系分化和有丝分裂生殖系增殖到减数分裂和减数分裂后配子成熟的任何阶段发生。在从二倍体生殖细胞到单倍体配子的任何阶段作用于生殖细胞的选择，可能导致与孟德尔遗传的显著偏差，并且可能比以前假设的更为广泛。影响和潜在改变生殖系中基因组序列和等位基因频率的机制对我们理解遗传性至关重要。随着新测序技术的兴起，我们现在能够解决其中的一些未解决的问题。在这篇综述中，我们评论了该领域的最新进展，并指出了我们知识中的当前空白。
