Document Type
Honors Thesis
Abstract
The XX/XY sex chromosome system governs the sex determination of many organisms, where female individuals typically possess the XX sex chromosome pair and male individuals possess the XY pair. However, in some species, the Y chromosome is degraded due to reduced recombination and genetic processes that results in the loss of gene content. Dosage compensation (DC) mechanisms evolve to counteract the significant loss of one copy of genes and serves to maintain the level of gene expression before the loss of one copy of genes. This study will explore how sex-biased gene expression may affect DC evolution by observing the difference between expression levels of sex-linked genes (sex-biased expression) on the neoX sex chromosome in male and female Tribolium confusum and then comparing the difference in expression levels of the same genes found on autosomal chromosome #2 (Chr2) in the closely related species Tribolium castaneum. This research hopes to determine if dosage compensation or sex-bias had driven the translocation of Chr2 to neoX from autosome to sex-linked chromosome. Male and female T. confusum were raised for multiple generations and their front legs were dissected. Gene expression from male and female legs was obtained by RNA-sequencing analysis. Although the results cannot be considered statistically significant due to the lack of replicates in the project, further research may provide more insight on the relationship between sex-biased gene expression and dosage compensation.
Disciplines
Biology
Publication Date
5-2024
Language
English
Faculty Mentor of Honors Project
Jeffery Demuth
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Truong, Preston Q., "Analyzing the Effects of Sex-Biased Gene Expression on Dosage Compensation: An Exploratory Investigation of Gene Expression Differences in Tribolium Leg Tissue" (2024). 2024 Spring Honors Capstone Projects. 6.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/honors_spring2024/6