Keywords: speciation

Do sex-linked male meiotic drivers contribute to intrinsic hybrid incompatibilities? Recent empirical studies from flies and rodents

J. Kitano and K. Yoshida,  Current Opinion in Genetics and Development,  81:102068. 2023.
Intrinsic hybrid incompatibility is one of the important isolating barriers between species. In organisms with sex chromosomes, intrinsic hybrid incompatibility often follows two rules: Haldane’s rule and large-X effects. One explanation for these two rules is that sex ...
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Meiotic drive is associated with sexual incompatibility in Neurospora

A. Vogan, J. Svedberg, M. Grudzinska-Sterno and H. Johannesson,  Evolution,  2022.
Evolution of Bateson-Dobzhansky-Muller (BDM) incompatibilities is thought to represent a key step in the formation of separate species. They are incompatible alleles that have evolved in separate populations and are exposed in hybrid offspring as hybrid sterility or lethality. In ...
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Ubiquitous Selfish Toxin-Antidote Elements in Caenorhabditis Species

E. Ben-David, P. Pliota, S. A. Widen, A. Koreshova, T. Lemus-Vergara, P. Verpukhovskiy, S. Mandali, C. Braendle, A. Burga and L. Kruglyak,  Current Biology,  2021.
Here, we report the discovery of maternal-effect TAs in both C. tropicalis and C. briggsae, two distant relatives of C. elegans. In C. tropicalis, multiple TAs combine to cause a striking degree of intraspecific incompatibility: five elements reduce the fitness of >70% of the ...
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New insect species made via genetic engineering

L. Leffer,  SCIENCELINE,  2020.
A biotech fast-forward button for evolution is on the horizon. Researchers say they have used a novel genetic engineering method to create several new species of fruit fly in the lab for the first time — an achievement which might help put a future without malaria and other ...
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Gene flow mediates the role of sex chromosome meiotic drive during complex speciation

Meiklejohn, CDL, Emily L.; Gordon, Kathleen E.; Rzatkiewicz, Thomas; Kingan, Sarah B.; Geneva, Anthony J.; Vedanayagam, Jeffrey P.; Muirhead, Christina A.; Garrigan, Daniel; Stern, David L.; Presgraves, Daven C.,  eLife,  7:e35468. 2018.
During speciation, sex chromosomes often accumulate interspecific genetic incompatibilities faster than the rest of the genome. The drive theory posits that sex chromosomes are susceptible to recurrent bouts of meiotic drive and suppression, causing the evolutionary build-up of ...
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Veni, vidi, vici: the success of wtf meiotic drivers in fission yeast

López Hernández, JFZ, Sarah E.,  Yeast,  35:447-453. 2018.
Meiotic drivers are selfish DNA loci that can bias their own transmission into gametes. Owing to their transmission advantages, meiotic drivers can spread in populations even if the drivers or linked variants decrease organismal fitness. Meiotic drive was first formally described ...
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Centromere strength provides the cell biological basis for meiotic drive and karyotype evolution in mice

Chmatal, L., S. I. Gabriel, G. P. Mitsainas, J. Martinez-Vargas, J. Ventura, J. B. Searle, R. M. Schultz and M. A. Lampson,  Current Biology,  24:2295-2300. 2014.
Mammalian karyotypes (number and structure of chromosomes) can vary dramatically over short evolutionary time frames [1-3]. There are examples of massive karyotype conversion, from mostly telocentric (centromere terminal) to mostly metacentric (centromere internal), in 102-10 s ...
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