ArticleBMC biology2007
Faced with inequality: chicken do not have a general dosage compensation of sex-linked genes.
Article in BMC biology, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 150 papers.
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150 citing papers in PubMed, 255 citations in OpenAlex.
- Screening and identification of genes for cell autonomous sex identity in chicken somatic cells.Poultry science · 2026Article
- Advances in Poultry RNA-Omics Research: Technologies, RNA Information Layers, and Applications in Complex Traits.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Review
- Not All Roads Lead to Red: The Genetics of Sexual Dichromatism in the Northern Cardinal (Cardinals cardinalis).Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Multi-layered dosage compensation of the avian Z chromosome by increased transcriptional burst frequency and elevated translational rates.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Sharks and rays have the oldest vertebrate sex chromosome with unique sex determination mechanisms.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Genetic regulation of gene expression across multiple tissues in chickens.Nature genetics · 2025Article
- Incomplete transcriptional dosage compensation of chicken and platypus sex chromosomes is balanced by post-transcriptional compensation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Single-nucleus atlas of the Artemia female reproductive system suggests germline repression of the Z chromosome.PLoS genetics · 2024Article
- Lack of Dosage Balance and Incomplete Dosage Compensation in the ZZ/ZW Gila Monster (Heloderma suspectum) Revealed by De Novo Genome Assembly.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- The regulation of methylation on the Z chromosome and the identification of multiple novel Male Hyper-Methylated regions in the chicken.PLoS genetics · 2024Article
- RNA sequencing analysis of sexual dimorphism in Japanese quail.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2024Article
- Dosage compensation of Z sex chromosome genes in avian fibroblast cells.Genome biology · 2023Article
- Chromatin accessibility, not 5mC methylation covaries with partial dosage compensation in crows.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
- Contribution of birds to the study of sexual differentiation of brain and behavior.Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
- Sex differences in song syntax and syllable diversity in testosterone-induced songs of adult male and female canaries.Biology of sex differences · 2023Article
- Incomplete dosage balance and dosage compensation in the ZZ/ZW Gila monster (bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Article
- Testosterone treatment reveals marked sex differences in song diversity and syllable syntax in adult canaries.Research square · 2023Article
- Avian Sex Determination: A Chicken and Egg Conundrum.Sexual development : genetics, molecular biology, evolution, endocrinology, embryology, and pathology of sex determination and differentiation · 2023Review
90 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe contrasting dose of sex chromosomes in males and females potentially introduces a large-scale imbalance in levels of gene expression between sexes, and between sex chromosomes and autosomes. In many organisms, dosage compensation has thus evolved to equalize sex-linked gene expression in males and females. In mammals this is achieved by X chromosome inactivation and in flies and worms by up- or down-regulation of X-linked expression, respectively. While otherwise widespread in systems with heteromorphic sex chromosomes, the case of dosage compensation in birds (males ZZ, females ZW) remains an unsolved enigma.
resultsHere, we use a microarray approach to show that male chicken embryos generally express higher levels of Z-linked genes than female birds, both in soma and in gonads. The distribution of male-to-female fold-change values for Z chromosome genes is wide and has a mean of 1.4-1.6, which is consistent with absence of dosage compensation and sex-specific feedback regulation of gene expression at individual loci. Intriguingly, without global dosage compensation, the female chicken has significantly lower expression levels of Z-linked compared to autosomal genes, which is not the case in male birds.
conclusionThe pronounced sex difference in gene expression is likely to contribute to sexual dimorphism among birds, and potentially has implication to avian sex determination. Importantly, this report, together with a recent study of sex-biased expression in somatic tissue of chicken, demonstrates the first example of an organism with a lack of global dosage compensation, providing an unexpected case of a viable system with large-scale imbalance in gene expression between sexes.
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