300 million years of conserved synteny between chicken Z and human chromosome 9 (original) (raw)

Nature Genetics volume 21, pages 258–259 (1999)Cite this article

Birds diverged from mammals 300–350 million years ago1 (Mya). In mammals, the male is the heterogametic sex (XY male and XX female) and 'maleness' is under the control of a testis-determining factor, SRY, located on the Y chromosome. In contrast, sex determination in birds operates through a ZZ/ZW system in which the female is the heterogametic sex. It is not clear, however, whether this system is controlled by a dominant factor on the W chromosome or by Z-chromosome dosage2,3.

In mammals, sex is determined by the male-dominant factor on the Y chromosome, SRY (ref. 10). Sex-reversal syndromes in humans, however, indicate the presence of other downstream sex-determining genes. Monosomy for the distal short arm of HSA 9 has been associated with failure of testicular development and XY sex reversal, which is most likely due to haploinsufficiency of a dosage-sensitive gene11,12. Recently, the human DM-domain gene expressed in the testis, DMRT1, which shares significant structural homology with male sexual regulatory genes from Caenorhabditis elegans (mab-3) and Drosophila melanogaster (dsx), has been identified in the critical region13. We reasoned that an orthologous gene on GGA Z might be involved in avian testis development.

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Acknowledgements

We thank W.J. Schneider, V.M. Fowler, G. Dechant and G. Goodwin for providing chicken DNA probes; H.H. Arnold, B. Andree and T. Brand for the chick cDNA library; and C. Möller for help with the preparation of the manuscript. Supported by grants from the Commission of the European Communities (FAIR PL97-3796, BIO4 98-0288) and the German Research Foundation (Ha 1374/5-1). Genome research at the Roslin Institute is supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Biotechnology Sciences Research Council and the Commission of the European Communities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Genetics, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, D-97074, Germany
    Indrajit Nanda, Michael Koehler & Michael Schmid
  2. Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Genetics, Berlin, D-14195, Germany
    Zhihong Shan, Hans-Gerd Nothwang, Frank Grützner & Thomas Haaf
  3. Department of Physiological Chemistry I, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Germany
    Manfred Schartl
  4. Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), Midlothian, Roslin, EH25 9PS, Scotland, UK
    Dave W. Burt, Ian R. Paton, Dawn Windsor & Ian Dunn
  5. Department of Human Genetics, University of Göttingen, Germany
    Wolfgang Engel
  6. Department of Virology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, D-79008, Germany
    Peter Staeheli
  7. Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Tohoku University, Sendai, 981, Japan
    Shigeki Mizuno

Authors

  1. Indrajit Nanda
  2. Zhihong Shan
  3. Manfred Schartl
  4. Dave W. Burt
  5. Michael Koehler
  6. Hans-Gerd Nothwang
  7. Frank Grützner
  8. Ian R. Paton
  9. Dawn Windsor
  10. Ian Dunn
  11. Wolfgang Engel
  12. Peter Staeheli
  13. Shigeki Mizuno
  14. Thomas Haaf
  15. Michael Schmid

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Nanda, I., Shan, Z., Schartl, M. et al. 300 million years of conserved synteny between chicken Z and human chromosome 9.Nat Genet 21, 258–259 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/6769

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