Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Interdisciplinary Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Genes (Basel). 2023 Jan 28;14(2):336. doi: 10.3390/genes14020336.
The division of the genome into discrete chromosomes is a fundamental characteristic of eukaryotic life. Insect taxonomists' early adoption of cytogenetics has led to an incredible amount of data describing genome structure across insects. In this article, we synthesize data from thousands of species and use biologically realistic models to infer the tempo and mode of chromosome evolution among insect orders. Our results show that orders vary dramatically in the overall rate of chromosome number evolution (a proxy of genome structural stability) and the pattern of evolution (e.g., the balance between fusions and fissions). These findings have important implications for our understanding of likely modes of speciation and offer insight into the most informative clades for future genome sequencing.
基因组划分为离散的染色体是真核生物的一个基本特征。昆虫分类学家早期采用细胞遗传学，导致了大量描述昆虫基因组结构的数据。在本文中，我们综合了数千个物种的数据，并使用生物学上合理的模型来推断昆虫目之间染色体进化的速度和模式。我们的结果表明，目之间在染色体数量进化的总体速率（基因组结构稳定性的一个指标）和进化模式（例如，融合和裂变之间的平衡）方面存在显著差异。这些发现对我们理解可能的物种形成模式具有重要意义，并为未来基因组测序提供了最有信息的进化枝的见解。
