Jeet Sawant* and Bengt Hannson

Department of Biology, Lund University, Sweden

*Corresponding Author: Jeet Sawant, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sweden.

Received: December 11, 2023; Published: January 18, 2024

Abstract

The mammalian Y and avian W chromosomes share several features including being repeat rich and gene poor. However, while Y holds several multicopy ampliconic genes, only a single ampliconic gene is known on W, HINTW. HINTW has a role in avian sex determination, evolves through gene conversion, and has a homolog on Z, HINTZ. Studies in Galliformes found more HINTW copies in young than old individuals, but whether a similar aging effect occurs in other birds remains unexplored. We aligned avian HINTZ and HINTW exon-III sequences and designed primers to study the number of HINTW copies in passerines. The primers successfully amplified HINTW in DNA extracted from red blood cells of species representatives of three passerine families, and using qPCR we estimated 9-15 HINTW copies among passerines, in closely related species from superfamily Sylvioidea, which is fewer than the 18-40 copies reported for Galliformes. Finally, we uncovered a significant loss of HINTW copies in red blood cells of aging great reed warblers, and that the gene loss accelerated in birds infected with malaria parasites. A further study on migratory species infected with malaria suggests further loss of gene copies hampering the reproductive success in the great reed warbler population.

Keywords: HINTW; Ampliconic; Gene Conversion; Gene copies; qPCR; Passerines; Malaria; Great Reed Warblers

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Citation

Citation: Jeet Sawant and Bengt Hannson. “Sequence Evolution and Copy Number Variation in HINTW".Acta Scientific Microbiology 7.2 (2024): 54-71.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2024 Jeet Sawant and Bengt Hannson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.