Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ann Kathrin Huylmans Institute for Organismic and Molecular Evolution (IOME), Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
"Evolution of sex determination and sex-bias gene expression"
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ann Kathrin Huylmans
Sex determination mechanisms and strategies associated with sexual reproduction across the tree of life are incredibly diverse. Yet, most of what we currently know is based on a few classical model organisms that mostly have genetic sex determination via XY sex chromosomes. Hence, this mode of sex determination is comparatively well understood even if still many questions about the exact underlying molecular mechanisms and especially the evolutionary histories remain elusive. With the advances in sequencing technology and the availability of more and more genomes, it has now become feasible to also investigate sex determination mechanisms in non-model organisms on the genetic and molecular level. These new data change our understanding of how sex determination systems evolve and which factors contribute to sexual dimorphism. For example, it was long assumed that species with ZW sex determination do not evolve dosage compensation that affects the whole Z chromosome while this is seen on the X chromosome of many species. We could show that whole chromosome dosage compensation has indeed evolved in ZW systems repeatedly. We also use non-model organisms to study the role of sex determination in the evolution of eusociality and the effect of environmental sex determination on the genome and gene expression.
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