Gradual and quantum genome size shifts in the hystricognath rodents

The mole genome reveals regulatory rearrangements associated with adaptive intersexuality

Linking genomic variation to phenotypical traits remains a major challenge in evolutionary genetics. In this study, we use phylogenomic strategies to investigate a distinctive trait among mammals: the development of masculinizing ovotestes in female moles. By combining a chromosome-scale genome assembly of the Iberian mole, Talpa occidentalis, with transcriptomic, epigenetic, and chromatin interaction datasets, we identify rearrangements altering the regulatory landscape of genes with distinct gonadal expression patterns. These include a tandem triplication involving CYP17A1, a gene controlling androgen synthesis, and an intrachromosomal inversion involving the pro-testicular growth factor gene FGF9, which is heterochronically expressed in mole ovotestes. Transgenic mice with a knock-in mole CYP17A1 enhancer or overexpressing FGF9 showed phenotypes recapitulating mole sexual features. Our results highlight how integrative genomic approaches can reveal the phenotypic impact of noncoding sequence changes.

Evolution of the Largest Mammalian Genome

The genome of the red vizcacha rat (Rodentia, Octodontidae, Tympanoctomys barrerae) is the largest of all mammals, and about double the size of their close relative, the mountain vizcacha rat Octomys mimax, even though the lineages that gave rise to these species diverged from each other only about 5 Ma. The mechanism for this rapid genome expansion is controversial, and hypothesized to be a consequence of whole genome duplication or accumulation of repetitive elements. To test these alternative but nonexclusive hypotheses, we gathered and evaluated evidence from whole transcriptome and whole genome sequences of T. barrerae and O. mimax. We recovered support for genome expansion due to accumulation of a diverse assemblage of repetitive elements, which represent about one half and one fifth of the genomes of T. barrerae and O. mimax, respectively, but we found no strong signal of whole genome duplication. In both species, repetitive sequences were rare in transcribed regions as compared with the rest of the genome, and mostly had no close match to annotated repetitive sequences from other rodents. These findings raise new questions about the genomic dynamics of these repetitive elements, their connection to widespread chromosomal fissions that occurred in the T. barrerae ancestor, and their fitness effects—including during the evolution of hypersaline dietary tolerance in T. barrerae.

Similarities and differences among the chromosomes of the wild guinea pig Cavia tschudii and the domestic guinea pig Cavia porcellus (Rodentia, Caviidae)

Cavia tschudii Fitzinger, 1867 is a wild guinea pig species living in South America that according to the analysis of mitochondrial genes is the closest wild form of the domestic guinea pig. To investigate the genetic divergence between the wild and domestic species of guinea pigs from a cytogenetic perspective, we characterized and compared the C, G and AgNOR banded karyotypes of molecularly identified Cavia tschudii and Cavia porcellus Linnaeus, 1758 specimens for the first time. Both species showed 64 chromosomes of similar morphology, although C. tschudii had four medium size submetacentric pairs that were not observed in the C. porcellus karyotype. Differences in the C bands size and the mean number of AgNOR bands between the karyotypes of the two species were detected. Most of the two species chromosomes showed total G band correspondence, suggesting that they probably represent large syntenic blocks conserved over time. Partial G band correspondence detected among the four submetacentric chromosomes present only in the C. tschudii karyotype and their subtelocentric homologues in C. porcellus may be explained by the occurrence of four pericentric inversions that probably emerged and were fixed in the C. tschudii populations under domestication. The role of the chromosomal and genomic differences in the divergence of these two Cavia species is discussed.

Distribution of repetitive DNAs and the hybrid origin of the red vizcacha rat (Octodontidae)

Great genome size (GS) variations described in desert-specialist octodontid rodents include diploid species ( Octomys mimax and Octodontomys gliroides ) and putative tetraploid species ( Tympanoctomys barrerae and Pipanacoctomys aureus ). Because of its high DNA content, elevated chromosome number, and gigas effect, the genome of T. barrerae is claimed to have resulted from tetraploidy. Alternatively, the origin of its GS has been attributed to the accumulation of repetitive sequences. To better characterize the extent and origin of these repetitive DNA, self-genomic in situ hybridization (self-GISH), whole-comparative genomic hybridization (W-CGH), and conventional GISH were conducted in mitotic and meiotic chromosomes. Self-GISH on T. barrerae mitotic plates together with comparative self-GISH (using its closest relatives) discriminate a pericentromeric and a telomeric DNA fraction. As most of the repetitive sequences are pericentromeric, it seems that the large GS of T. barrerae is not due to highly repeated sequences accumulated along chromosomes arms. W-CGH using red-labeled P. aureus DNA and green-labeled O. mimax DNA simultaneously on chromosomes of T. barrerae revealed a yellow-orange fluorescence over a repetitive fraction of the karyotype. However, distinctive red-only fluorescent signals were also detected at some centromeres and telomeres, indicating closer homology with the DNA sequences of P. aureus. Conventional GISH using an excess of blocking DNA from either P. aureus or O. mimax labeled only a fraction of the T. barrerae genome, indicating its double genome composition. These data point to a hybrid nature of the T. barrerae karyotype, suggesting a hybridization event in the origin of this species.

The N-terminus of rodent and human MAD1 confers species-specific stringency to spindle assembly checkpoint

The spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) guards against chromosomal mis-segregation and the emergence of aneuploidy. SAC in higher eukaryotes includes at least 10 proteins including MAD1-3, BUB1-3, and Msp1. A long-standing observation has been that rodent cells are more tolerant of microtubule toxins than primate cells indicating that SAC function is more relaxed in the former than the latter. Here, we report on an unexpected functional difference between the rodent and human MAD1 component of the respective SAC. Ectopic expression of human MAD1 in mouse and hamster cells corrected a relaxed SAC to a more stringent form. Our findings posit MAD1 as a species-specific determinant which influences the stringency of cellular response to microtubule depolymerization and spindle damage.

Molecular cytogenetics and allotetraploidy in the red vizcacha rat, Tympanoctomys barrerae (Rodentia, Octodontidae)

The theoretical impossibility of polyploidy in mammals was overturned by the discovery of tetraploidy in the red vizcacha rat, Tympanoctomys barrerae (2n = 102). As a consequence of genome duplication, remarkably increased cell dimensions are observed in the spermatozoa and in different somatic cell lines of this species. Locus duplication had been previously demonstrated by in situ PCR and Southern blot analysis of single-copy genes. Here, we corroborate duplication of loci in multiple-copy (major rDNAs) and single-copy (Hoxc8) genes by fluorescence in situ hybridization. We also demonstrate that nucleolar dominance, a large-scale epigenetic silencing phenomenon characteristic of allopolyploids, explains the presence of only one Ag-NOR chromosome pair in T. barrerae. Nucleolar dominance, together with the chromosomal heteromorphism detected in the G-banding pattern and synaptonemal complexes of the species' diploid-like meiosis, consistently indicates allotetraploidy. Allotetraploidization can coherently explain the peculiarities of gene silencing, cell dimensions, and karyotypic features of T. barrerae that remain unexplained by assuming diploidy and a large genome size attained by the dispersion of repetitive sequences.

Molecular cytogenetics discards polyploidy in mammals

Polyploidy, the presence of more than two chromosome sets, is common in plants, but extremely rare in animals. The absence of polyploid organisms with well-differentiated sex chromosomes suggests that the disruption of the dosage between autosomes and sex chromosomes is incompatible with normal development. Thus, the announcement in 1999 of tetraploidy in a mammal, the South American red vizcacha rat Tympanoctomys barrerae, provoked great interest, even though the definitive proof of tetraploidy, the presence of four copies of each chromosome, was never provided. Here we used classical and molecular cytogenetics to test the ploidy level of T. barrerae and demonstrate that only two copies of each chromosome are present in this karyotype. The red vizcacha rat is clearly diploid and the amplification and dispersion of repetitive sequences best explain the large genome size of this mammal. Thus, polyploidy in mammals remains as unlikely as it has always been.