ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
The avian W chromosome is a refugium for endogenous retroviruses with likely effects on female-biased mutational load and genetic incompatibilities.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 62 papers.
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62 citing papers in PubMed, 86 citations in OpenAlex.
- The rate and spectrum of germline mutations in chicken from a commercial pedigree line.Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE · 2026Article
- Satellite DNA evolution in Tytonidae (Aves: Strigiformes): dynamic repeat landscapes despite conserved karyotypes.Chromosome research : an international journal on the molecular, supramolecular and evolutionary aspects of chromosome biology · 2026Article
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- Chromosome-level genome assembly of the sand martin (Riparia riparia).Scientific data · 2026Article
- Genomic resources for two apex avian predators from Saudi Arabia: Falco biarmicus and Falco peregrinus.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- Genomic erosion across avian lineages in the context of their evolutionary history.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- A highly contiguous genome assembly for the wrentit (Chamaea fasciata), the sole representative of the babbler radiation in the Americas.The Journal of heredity · 2026Article
- MicroFinder: conserved gene-set mapping and assembly ordering for manual curation of bird dot microchromosomes.GigaScience · 2026Article
- Neo-sex Chromosomes Track the Mitochondrial Phylogeny and Exhibit an Extensive Added Stratum of Recombination Suppression in Honeyeaters (Aves: Meliphagidae).Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Sex-Chromosome-Dependent Ageing in Female Heterogametic Methylomes.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
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- Genomic origins and evolution of neo-sex chromosomes in Pacific Island birds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The Tree of Sex consortium: a global initiative for studying the evolution of reproduction in eukaryotes.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2025Article
- Chromosomal Inversions Mediated by Tandem Insertions of Transposable Elements.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Programmed DNA elimination drives rapid genomic innovation in two thirds of all bird species.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Assembly of female and male hihi genomes (stitchbird; Notiomystis cincta) enables characterization of the W chromosome and resources for conservation genomics.Molecular ecology resources · 2025Article
- Diverse evolutionary trajectories of mitocoding DNA in mammalian and avian nuclear genomes.Genome research · 2025Article
- Exploring the Relationship of Transposable Elements and Ageing: Causes and Consequences.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Review
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2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 6 institutions in 10 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It is a broadly observed pattern that the non-recombining regions of sex-limited chromosomes (Y and W) accumulate more repeats than the rest of the genome, even in species like birds with a low genome-wide repeat content. Here, we show that in birds with highly heteromorphic sex chromosomes, the W chromosome has a transposable element (TE) density of greater than 55% compared to the genome-wide density of less than 10%, and contains over half of all full-length (thus potentially active) endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) of the entire genome. Using RNA-seq and protein mass spectrometry data, we were able to detect signatures of female-specific ERV expression. We hypothesize that the avian W chromosome acts as a refugium for active ERVs, probably leading to female-biased mutational load that may influence female physiology similar to the 'toxic-Y' effect in
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