Towards a functional view of B chromosome biology and its interface with sex chromosomes

• Grant number: 19/18190-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2019
• End date: August 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Animal Genetics
• Principal Investigator: César Martins
• Grantee: Ivan Rodrigo Wolf
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IBB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 15/16661-1 - Sex and B chromosome enigmas: model systems for the study of chromosome and genome evolution, AP.TEM

Abstract

Genomic changes represent a primary mutational mechanism that generates novel genetic raw material to evolution. B and sex chromosomes are part of a complex genomic system originated repeated times across eukaryotic evolutionary history. B and sex chromosomes harbor notorious shared traits in relation to the other chromosomes of the genome, associated to their origin, composition, and evolution. Thus, they are characterized as "odd" elements in relation to the rest of the genome. For instance, they share an absence/reduction of recombination, are enriched with repeated elements and follow distinct evolutionary fates compared to the rest of the genome. In fact, there are reports arguing sex chromosomes have been originated from B chromosomes. Taken together, both systems are good models to investigate chromosome changes since they occur in populations as post-rearranged structures. Thus, to find out the molecular basis that governs the chromosomal rearrangement occurred during their evolutionary processes it is important a better understanding of those odd chromosomes. In the new "cytogenomic" era, it is possible to address questions concerning the shared features between both chromosomes in a broader view than only structural karyotyping, allowing to go deeper in the structural and functional genomics using genomics, transcriptomes, proteomics and their integration offered by systems biology. In this way, we propose the analysis of insect and fish genomes with and without B/sex chromosomes based on genomic (structural and functional) and proteomic data, in order to understand how the chromosome/genome changes have acted over evolution. Furthermore, we believe the work will also contribute to understanding the impact of B and sex chromosomes in the cell physiology.