Gu Hongchang, Wang Liang, Lv Xueze, Yang Weifang, Chen Yu, Li Kaiyang, Zhang Jianwei, Jia Yaxiong, Ning Zhonghua, Qu Lujiang
National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China.
Beijing Municipal General Station of Animal Science, Beijing 100107, China.
Animals (Basel). 2022 May 9;12(9):1218. doi: 10.3390/ani12091218.
The regulation of gene expression is a complex process involving organism function and phenotypic diversity, and is caused by cis- and trans- regulation. While prior studies identified the regulatory pattern of the autosome rewiring in hybrids, the role of gene regulation in W sex chromosomes is not clear due to their degradation and sex-limit expression. Here, we developed reciprocal crosses of two chicken breeds, White Leghorn and Cornish Game, which exhibited broad differences in gender-related traits, and assessed the expression of the genes on the W chromosome to disentangle the contribution of cis- and trans-factors to expression divergence. We found that female-specific selection does not have a significant effect on W chromosome gene-expression patterns. For different tissues, there were most parental divergence expression genes in muscle, and also more heterosis compared with two other tissues. Notably, a broader pattern of trans regulation in the W chromosome was observed, which is consistent with autosomes. Taken together, this work describes the regulatory divergence of W-linked genes between two contrasting breeds and indicates sex chromosomes have a unique regulation and expression mechanism.
基因表达的调控是一个涉及生物体功能和表型多样性的复杂过程，由顺式调控和反式调控引起。虽然先前的研究确定了杂种中常染色体重排的调控模式，但由于W性染色体的退化和性别限制表达，基因调控在W性染色体中的作用尚不清楚。在这里，我们构建了两个鸡品种白来航鸡和科尼什鸡的正反交组合，这两个品种在性别相关性状上表现出广泛差异，我们评估了W染色体上基因的表达，以厘清顺式和反式因子对表达差异的贡献。我们发现雌性特异性选择对W染色体基因表达模式没有显著影响。对于不同组织，肌肉中亲本差异表达基因最多，与其他两个组织相比杂种优势也更多。值得注意的是，在W染色体上观察到了更广泛的反式调控模式，这与常染色体一致。综上所述，这项工作描述了两个对比品种之间W连锁基因的调控差异，并表明性染色体具有独特的调控和表达机制。
