Aborting meiosis overcomes hybrid sterility
Preprint, 2020
Hybrids between species or diverged lineages contain fundamentally novel genetic combinations but an impaired meiosis often makes them evolutionary dead ends. Here, we explored to what extent and how an aborted meiosis followed by a return-to-growth (RTG) promotes recombination across a panel of 20 yeast diploid backgrounds with different genomic structures and levels of sterility. Genome analyses of 284 clones revealed that RTG promoted recombination and generated extensive regions of loss-ofheterozygosity in sterile hybrids with either a defective meiosis or a heavily rearranged karyotype, whereas RTG recombination was reduced by high sequence divergence between parental subgenomes. The RTG recombination preferentially occurred in regions with local sequence homology and in meiotic recombination hotspots. The loss-of-heterozygosity had a profound impact on sexual and asexual fitness, and enabled genetic mapping of phenotypic differences in sterile lineages where linkage or association analyses failed. We propose that RTG gives sterile hybrids access to a natural route for genome recombination and adaptation.
Author
Simone Mozzachiodi
University of Côte d'Azur
Lorenzo Tattini
University of Côte d'Azur
Agnès Llored
University of Côte d'Azur
Agurtzane Irizar
University of Côte d'Azur
Neža Škofljanc
University of Côte d'Azur
Melania D’Angiolo
University of Côte d'Azur
Matteo De Chiara
University of Côte d'Azur
Benjamin P. Barré
University of Côte d'Azur
Jia Xing Yue
University of Côte d'Azur
Angela Lutazi
University of Côte d'Azur
Sophie Loeillet
Université Paris PSL
Raphaelle Laureau
Université Paris PSL
Souhir Marsit
Université Paris PSL
University of Montpellier
Simon Stenberg
University of Gothenburg
Benoit Albaud
Institut Curie
Karl Persson
University of Gothenburg
Jean-Luc Legras
University of Montpellier
Sylvie Dequin
University of Montpellier
Jonas Warringer
University of Gothenburg
Alain Nicolas
Université Paris PSL
Gianni Liti
University of Côte d'Azur
Subject Categories
Evolutionary Biology
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Microbiology
Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Genetics
DOI
10.1101/2020.12.04.411579