Genomic data shed light on sex-determination in Australian freshwater
Percichthyid fish species: Many ways to be a male
Abstract
Understanding sex-specific biology can aid conservation management. But
understanding genomic sex differences of monomorphic fish species and
developing molecular sexing assays is challenged by their diverse
sex-determination systems. To facilitate research on Percichthyid fish,
predominant in the Australian freshwater biota, we report whole genome
sequences and annotations of the endangered Macquarie perch Macquaria
australasica and its sister species, the golden perch M. ambigua. To
identify sex-linked loci, we conducted whole genome resequencing on 100
known-sex Macquarie perch. In-silico pool-seq comparisons revealed few
sex differences, but a 275-Kb SOX-containing scaffold was enriched for
gametologous loci- homozygous in females, heterozygous in males. Within
this scaffold we reconstructed X- and Y-linked 146-bp haplotypes
containing 5 sex-linked SNPs, ~38 Kb upstream of SOX,
and developed a PCR-RFLP sexing assay targeting the Y-linked allele of
one SNP. We tested this assay in a panel of known-sex Macquarie perch,
and smaller panels of three other confamilial species. Amplicon
sequencing of 400 bp encompassing the 146-bp region revealed that the
few sex-linked positions differ interspecifically, and within Macquarie
perch such that its sexing test approached 100% reliability only for
the populations used in assay development. Similarly, Macquarie- and
golden perch genome-wide DArTseq SNPs revealed different sex-linked loci
across non-homologous scaffolds. Overall, we identified 22 sex-linked
SNPs in Macquarie perch in a predominantly XX/XY system in which females
are homozygous at all 22, and males are heterozygous at 2 or more. The
resources here will facilitate multi-locus sexing assays for both
species and research on Percichthyid biology.