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Title: SEX CHROMOSOMES IN FLOWERING PLANTS

Author
item MING, RAY - UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
item WANG, JIANPING - UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
item Moore, Paul
item PATERSON, ANDREW - UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

Submitted to: American Journal of Botany
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/20/2006
Publication Date: 2/16/2007
Citation: Ming, R., Wang, J., Moore, P.H., Paterson, A. 2007. Sex chromosomes in flowering plants. American Journal of Botany. 94(2): 141-150.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Sex chromosomes in dioecious and polygamous plants evolved as a mechanism for ensuring outcrossing to increase genetic variation in the offspring. Sex specificity has evolved in 75% of plant families by male sterile or female sterile mutations, but well defined heteromorphic sex chromosomes are known in only five plant families. A pivotal event in sex chromosome evolution, suppression of recombination at the sex determination locus and its neighboring regions, might be lacking in most dioecious species. However, once recombination is suppressed around the sex determination region, an incipient Y chromosome starts to differentiate by accumulating deleterious mutations, transposable element insertions, chromosomal rearrangements, and selection for male specific alleles. Some plant species have homomorphic sex chromosomes near the inception of sex chromosome evolution, while other species have sex chromosomes that have diverged sufficiently to be heteromorphic. Comparative analysis of carefully selected plant species together with some fish species promises new insights into the origins of sex chromosomes and the selective forces driving their evolution.