Publications by authors named "Cecile Fruchard"
The genome and its giant Y chromosome.
Carol Moraga
,
Catarina Branco
,
Quentin Rougemont
,
Pavel Jedlička
,
Eddy Mendoza-Galindo
,
Cécile Fruchard
Science
February 2025
In many species with sex chromosomes, the Y is a tiny chromosome. However, the dioecious plant has a giant ~550-megabase Y chromosome, which has remained unsequenced so far. We used a long- and short-read hybrid approach to obtain a high-quality male genome.
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- About 15,000 angiosperms are dioecious, meaning they have distinct male and female plants, but the exact processes behind their sex determination, especially involving Y chromosomes, are not well understood.
- The study investigates a dioecious cucurbit with a notable level of X/Y chromosome differences, identifying sex-linked genes through RNA sequencing and a method called SEX-DETector.
- Findings indicate significant Y chromosome degeneration, evidenced by a lower average gene expression on the Y chromosome and a potential loss of about 40% of Y-linked genes, while the X chromosome appears to compensate for this reduced expression, hinting at common patterns of dosage compensation across various plant species.
Genomic imprinting mediates dosage compensation in a young plant XY system.
Nat Plants
September 2018
Sex chromosomes have repeatedly evolved from a pair of autosomes. Consequently, X and Y chromosomes initially have similar gene content, but ongoing Y degeneration leads to reduced expression and eventual loss of Y genes. The resulting imbalance in gene expression between Y genes and the rest of the genome is expected to reduce male fitness, especially when protein networks have components from both autosomes and sex chromosomes.
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