Recurrent chromosome reshuffling and the evolution of neo-sex chromosomes in parrots

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28585-1
• Publication Date: 2022-02-17T11:02:53Z
• Authors: Zhen Huang; Ivanete De O. Furo; Jing Liu; Valentina Peona; Anderson J. B. Gomes; Wan Cen; Hao Huang; Yanding Zhang; Duo Chen; Ting Xue; Qiujin Zhang; Zhicao Yue; Quanxi Wang; Lingyu Yu; Youling Chen; Alexander Suh; Edivaldo H. C. de...; Luohao Xu
• Keywords: Chromosomal rearrangement

The karyotype of most birds has remained considerably stable during more than 100 million years' evolution, except for some groups, such as parrots. evolutionary processes and underlying genetic mechanism chromosomal rearrangements in parrots, however, are poorly understood. Here, using chromosome-level assemblies four parrot genomes, we uncover frequent chromosome fusions fissions, with them occurring independently among lineages. increased activities parrots likely associated parrot-specific loss two genes, ALC1 PARP3, that have known functions the repair double-strand breaks maintenance genome stability. We further find fusion ZW sex chromosomes 11 created a pair neo-sex ancestor 25 been added to monk parakeet. Together, combination our genomic cytogenetic analyses characterizes complex history