Towards a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between sex-biased gene expression and rates of protein-coding sequence evolution

Mol Biol Evol. 2011 Jun;28(6):1893-900. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msr010. Epub 2011 Jan 13.

Abstract

Genes that are differentially expressed between the sexes (sex-biased genes) are among the fastest evolving genes in animal genomes. The majority of sex-biased expression is attributable to genes that are primarily expressed in sex-limited reproductive tissues, and these reproductive genes are often rapidly evolving because of intra- and intersexual selection pressures. Additionally, studies of multiple taxa have revealed that genes with sex-biased expression are also expressed in a limited number of tissues. This is worth noting because narrowly expressed genes are known to evolve faster than broadly expressed genes. Therefore, it is not clear whether sex-biased genes are rapidly evolving because they have sexually dimorphic expression, because they are expressed in sex-limited reproductive tissues, or because they are narrowly expressed. To determine the extend to which other confounding variables can explain the rapid evolution of sex-biased genes, I analyzed the rates of evolution of sex-biased genes in Drosophila melanogaster and Mus musculus in light of tissue-specific measures of expression. I find that genes with sex-biased expression in somatic tissues shared by both sexes are often evolving faster than non-sex-biased genes, but this is best explained by the narrow expression profiles of sex-biased genes. Sex-biased genes in sex-limited tissues in D. melanogaster, however, evolve faster than other narrowly expressed genes. Therefore, the rapid evolution of sex-biased genes is limited only to those genes primarily expressed in sex-limited reproductive tissues.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Drosophila melanogaster / genetics
  • Evolution, Molecular*
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation*
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Open Reading Frames / genetics*
  • Organ Specificity / genetics
  • Reproduction / genetics
  • Sex Factors
  • X Chromosome / genetics