Reconstruction of the birth of a male sex chromosome present in Atlantic herring

Abstract

Significance Understanding the evolution of sex determination mechanisms and sex chromosomes is of fundamental importance in biology. Here we have reconstructed the evolution of the sex-determining region in the Atlantic herring. The region is small and contains only three intact genes. The candidate sex-determining factor BMPR1BBY is an evolutionary innovation in the herring lineage. It encodes a truncated form of a BMP type I receptor, which originated by gene duplication and underwent rapid protein evolution. The receptor has maintained its kinase activity and has the potential to induce development of testis. The other two genes in the sex-determining region, CATSPERG and CATSPER3Y , are male beneficial genes because they encode proteins predicted to be essential for sperm to fertilize the egg.