The <i>Silene latifolia</i> genome and its giant Y chromosome
Carol Moraga, Catarina Branco, Quentin Rougemont, Pavel Jedlička, Eddy Mendoza-Galindo, Paris Veltsos, Melissa Hanique, Ricardo C. Rodŕıguez de la Vega, Éric Tannier, Xiaodong Liu, Claire Lemaitre, Peter D. Fields, Corinne Cruaud, Karine Labadie, Caroline Belser, Jérôme Briolay, Sylvain Santoni, Radim Čegan, Raquel Linheiro, Gabriele Adam, Adil El Filali, Vinciane Mossion, Adnane Boualem, Raquel Tavares, Amine Chebbi, Richard Cordaux, Cécile Fruchard, Djivan Prentout, Amandine Velt, B. Spataro, Stéphane Delmotte, L Weingärtner, Helena Toegelová, Zuzana Tulpová, Petr Cápal, Hana Šimková, Helena Štorchová, Manuela Krüger, Oushadee A. J. Abeyawardana, Douglas R. Taylor, Matthew S. Olson, Daniel B. Sloan, Sophie Karrenberg, Lynda F. Delph, Deborah Charlesworth, Aline Muyle, Tatiana Giraud, Abdelhafid Bendahmane, Alex Di Genova, Mohammed‐Amin Madoui, Roman Hobza, Gabriel Marais
Abstract
has a giant ~550-megabase Y chromosome, which has remained unsequenced so far. We used a long- and short-read hybrid approach to obtain a high-quality male genome. Comparative analysis of the sex chromosomes with their homologs in outgroups showed that the Y is highly rearranged and degenerated. Recombination suppression between X and Y extended in several steps and triggered a massive accumulation of repeats on the Y as well as in the nonrecombining pericentromeric region of the X, leading to giant sex chromosomes. Using sex phenotype mutants, we identified candidate sex-determining genes on the Y in locations consistent with their favoring recombination suppression events 11 and 5 million years ago.