Variable dosage compensation is associated with female consequences of an X-linked, male-beneficial mutation
Abstract
Recent theory has suggested that dosage compensation mediates sexual antagonism over X-linked genes. This process relies on the assumption that dosage compensation scales phenotypic effects between the sexes, which is largely untested. We evaluated this by quantifying transcriptome variation associated with a recently arisen, male-beneficial, X-linked mutation across tissues of the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus, and testing the relationship between the completeness of dosage compensation and female phenotypic effects at the level of gene expression. Dosage compensation in T. oceanicus was variable across tissues but usually incomplete, such that relative expression of X-linked genes was typically greater in females. Supporting the assumption that dosage compensation scales phenotypic effects between the sexes, we found tissues with incomplete dosage compensation tended to show female-skewed effects of the X-linked allele. In gonads, where expression of X-linked genes was most strongly female-biased, ovaries-limited genes were much more likely to be X-linked than were testes-limited genes, supporting the view that incomplete dosage compensation favours feminization of the X. Our results support the expectation that sex chromosome dosage compensation scales phenotypic effects of X-linked genes between sexes, substantiating a key assumption underlying the theoretical role of dosage compensation in determining the dynamics of sexual antagonism on the X.
Citation
Rayner , J G , Hitchcock , T & Bailey , N W 2021 , ' Variable dosage compensation is associated with female consequences of an X-linked, male-beneficial mutation ' , Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences , vol. 288 , no. 1947 , 20210355 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0355
Publication
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0962-8452Type
Journal article
Description
Funding:TJH was supported by a PhD studentship from the University of St Andrews School of Biology. The study received funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council to NWB and JGR (NE/T0006191/1) and NWB (NE/L011255/1, NE/I027800/1).Collections
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