Comparative Genome Analysis of the Primary Sex-Determining Locus in Salmonid Fishes

  1. Rachael A. Woram1,
  2. Karim Gharbi1,2,
  3. Takashi Sakamoto3,
  4. Bjorn Hoyheim4,
  5. Lars-Erik Holm5,
  6. Kerry Naish6,
  7. Colin McGowan7,
  8. Moira M. Ferguson1,
  9. Ruth B. Phillips8,
  10. Jake Stein8,
  11. René Guyomard2,
  12. Margaret Cairney9,
  13. John B. Taggart9,
  14. Richard Powell10,
  15. William Davidson7, and
  16. Roy G. Danzmann1,11
  1. 1Department of Zoology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1; 2Laboratory of Fish Genetics, INRA, 78352 Jouy-en-Josas Cedex, France; 3Tokyo University of Fisheries, Minato, Tokyo 108-8477, Japan; 4Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Ullevålsveien 72, Oslo, Norway; 5Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark; 6School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA; 7Faculty of Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6; 8NIEHS Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204, USA; 9Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, UK; 10Department of Microbiology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

Abstract

We compared the Y-chromosome linkage maps for four salmonid species (Arctic charr, Salvelinus alpinus; Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar; brown trout, Salmo trutta; and rainbow trout,Oncorhynchus mykiss) and a putative Y-linked marker from lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush). These species represent the three major genera within the subfamily Salmoninae of the Salmonidae. The data clearly demonstrate that different Y-chromosomes have evolved in each of the species. Arrangements of markers proximal to the sex-determining locus are preserved on homologous, but different, autosomal linkage groups across the four species studied in detail. This indicates that a small region of DNA has been involved in the rearrangement of the sex-determining region. Placement of the sex-determining region appears telomeric in brown trout, Atlantic salmon, and Arctic charr, whereas an intercalary location forSEX may exist in rainbow trout. Three hypotheses are proposed to account for the relocation: translocation of a small chromosome arm; transposition of the sex-determining gene; or differential activation of a primary sex-determining gene region among the species.

Footnotes

  • ↵11 Corresponding author.

  • E-MAIL rdanzman{at}uoguelph.ca; FAX (519) 767-1656.

  • Article and publication are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.578503.

    • Received July 2, 2002.
    • Accepted November 26, 2002.
| Table of Contents

This Article

  1. doi: 10.1101/gr.578503 Genome Res. 13: 272-280 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

Article Category

Share

Preprint Server



Current Issue

  1. March 2026, 36 (3)
  1. Current Issue
  1. Alert me to new issues of Genome Research