Abstract
Sex determination mechanisms often differ even between related species yet the evolution of sex chromosomes remains poorly understood in all but a few model organisms. Some nematodes such as Caenorhabditis elegans have an XO sex determination system while others, such as the filarial parasite Brugia malayi, have an XY mechanism. We present a complete B. malayi genome assembly and define Nigon elements shared with C. elegans, which we then map to the genomes of other filarial species and more distantly related nematodes. We find a remarkable plasticity in sex chromosome evolution with several distinct cases of neo-X and neo-Y formation, X-added regions, and conversion of autosomes to sex chromosomes from which we propose a model of chromosome evolution across different nematode clades. The phylum Nematoda offers a new and innovative system for gaining a deeper understanding of sex chromosome evolution.
Highlights
Reads were split into separate libraries by barcode and each was aligned against the B. malayi genome (Bm.v4.QC.fa) using SMALT v0.5.2
To visualize the chromosomal rearrangements between B. malayi and other nematodes with well-assembled genomes, the new B. malayi v4.0 genome was compared against the O. volvulus and C. elegans genomes using the Promer tool from the MUMmer alignment suite[31,52]
In order to determine and visualize conserved sex chromosomal elements in nematode genomes beyond B. malayi, O. volvulus, and C. elegans, the most current genome assembly for each species was compared to B. malayi, O. volvulus, and C. elegans using the Promer tool from the MUMmer alignment suite[31,52]
Summary
Reads were split into separate libraries by barcode and each was aligned against the B. malayi genome (Bm.v4.QC.fa) using SMALT v0.5.2 SpeI optical map (created from an assembly of molecules >550 kb) consists of 17 contigs, an assembled size of 96.58 Mb and ~80× genome coverage of optical data.
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