CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal.
Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2022 May 9;377(1850):20210219. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0219. Epub 2022 Mar 21.
In animals, males and females can display markedly different longevity (also called sex gaps in longevity, SGL). Sex chromosomes contribute to establishing these SGLs. X-hemizygosity and toxicity of the Y chromosomes are two mechanisms that have been suggested to reduce male longevity (Z-hemizygosity and W toxicity in females in ZW systems). In plants, SGLs are known to exist, but the role of sex chromosomes remains to be established. Here, by using adult sex ratio as a proxy for measuring SGLs, we explored the relationship between sex chromosomes and SGLs across 43 plant species. Based on the knowledge accumulated in animals, we specifically asked whether: (i) species with XY systems tend to have female-biased sex ratios (reduced male longevity) and species with ZW ones tend to have male-biased sex ratios (reduced female longevity); and (ii) this pattern was stronger in heteromorphic systems compared to homomorphic ones. Our results tend to support these predictions although we lack statistical power because of a small number of ZW systems and the absence of any heteromorphic ZW system in the dataset. We discuss the implications of these findings, which we hope will stimulate further research on sex differences in lifespan and ageing across plants. This article is part of the theme issue 'Sex determination and sex chromosome evolution in land plants'.
在动物中，雄性和雌性的寿命（也称为寿命性别差距，SGL）存在明显差异。性染色体有助于确定这些 SGL。X 染色体半合性和 Y 染色体的毒性是两种被认为会降低雄性寿命的机制（在 ZW 系统中，雌性的 Z 染色体半合性和 W 染色体毒性）。在植物中，已知存在 SGL，但性染色体的作用仍有待确定。在这里，我们通过使用成年性别比例作为衡量 SGL 的替代指标，探索了 43 种植物物种中性染色体与 SGL 之间的关系。基于在动物中积累的知识，我们特别询问了以下问题：（i）具有 XY 系统的物种是否倾向于具有雌性偏性性别比例（降低雄性寿命），而具有 ZW 系统的物种是否倾向于具有雄性偏性性别比例（降低雌性寿命）；以及（ii）这种模式在异型性系统中是否比同型性系统更强。尽管由于 ZW 系统数量较少且数据集中没有任何异型 ZW 系统，我们缺乏统计能力，但我们的结果倾向于支持这些预测。我们讨论了这些发现的意义，希望这将激发对植物寿命和衰老性别差异的进一步研究。本文是主题为“陆地植物的性别决定和性染色体进化”的特刊的一部分。
