Publication
Title
A new cytotype of the African pygmy mouse **Mus minutoides** in Eastern Africa : implications for the evolution of sex-autosome translocations
Author
Abstract
The African pygmy mice (genus Mus, subgenus Nannomys) are recognized for their highly conserved morphology but extensive chromosomal diversity, particularly involving sex-autosome translocations, one of the rarest chromosomal rearrangements among mammals. It has been shown that in the absence of unambiguous diagnostic morphological traits, sex-autosome translocations offer accurate taxonomic markers. For example, in Mus minutoides, irrespective of the diploid number (which ranges from 2n = 18 to 34), all specimens possess the sex-autosome translocations (X.1) and (Y.1) that are unique to this species. In this study, we describe a new cytotype that challenges this view. Males are characterized by the translocation (Y.1) only, while females carry no sex-autosome translocation, the X chromosome being acrocentric. Hence, although sex-autosome translocations (X.1) and (Y.1) are still diagnostic when one or both are present, their absence does not rule out M. minutoides. This cytotype has a large distribution, with specimens found in Tanzania and in the eastern part of South Africa. The nonpervasive distribution of Rb(X.1) provides an opportunity to investigate different evolutionary scenarios of sex-autosome translocations using a phylogenetic framework and the distribution of telomeric repeats. The results tend to support a scenario involving a reversal event, i.e., fusion then fission of Rb(X.1), and highlighted the existence of a new X1X1X2X2/X1X2Y sex chromosome system, confirming the remarkable diversity of neo-sex chromosomes and sex determination systems in the African pygmy mice.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Chromosome research : an international journal on the molecular supramolecular and evolutionary aspects of chromosome biology / Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen [Amsterdam] - Oxford
Publication
Oxford : 2014
ISSN
0967-3849 [print]
1573-6849 [online]
DOI
10.1007/S10577-014-9440-X
Volume/pages
22 :4 (2014) , p. 533-543
ISI
000345967900008
Pubmed ID
25159220
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
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Research group
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Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
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Creation 07.10.2014
Last edited 09.10.2023
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